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Go for C developers

Go for C developers

The talk about transitioning from C to Golang I gave at devfest Pisa 0.1

The pdf version is slightly messed up. Original version can be found at https://talks.godoc.org/github.com/fedepaol/go-for-c-devs-talk/goforcdevs.slide#1

Federico Paolinelli

March 10, 2018
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  1. About me Lead developer at List C on daily basis

    Things I tinker with in my spare time: Android Python
  2. Very simple You have Structs struct Book { char title[50];

    char author[50]; }; Book b; // a mess memset(&b, 0, sizeof(Book)); strcpy(b.title, "Golang"); and functions void printBook(struct Book book) { printf("Title: %s", book.title); printf("Author: %s", book.author); }
  3. Oh, and you have pointers int i = 5; void

    changeValue(int* i) { *i = 12; } int array[3] = {0, 1, 2}; printf("%d", *(array + 2 * sizeof(int)); // 2 Direct access to memory locations. It's only way to pass references around instead of copies.
  4. What I like about C fast direct control of things

    (pointers!) no hidden costs you understand what you are reading
  5. What I don't like about C verbose easy to shoot

    on your foot limited standard library dependency management
  6. The recipe for Go Go back to the 70s /

    80s and nd a bunch of great programmers. Say, Ken Thompson, Rob Pike, people like that. Marinate them in Bell Labs for 30 years, during which time they code in C, keep developing Unix, invent Plan 9, UTF-8, and other wonderful things. Take them out, seduce them with Python, wow them with Google-scale computing. Add more amazing programmers (Brad Fitzpatrick for example), stir in Google’s near- unlimited resources. Ask them how they would do C now, if they could start from scratch. credits by Graham King (https://www.darkcoding.net/software/go-lang-after-four-months/)
  7. Go's elevator pitch: fast (C-ish fast) good at networking and

    multiprocessing scales well easy to learn comprehensible
  8. Basic data types As in C, we do have integers,

    oats, booleans: var n int64 = 23 var n1 int = 28 var p float64 = 9.75 var r bool = true Go provides a higher level string type: var s string = "Hello" s = s + " Devfest" // s = "Hello devfest" s = s[1:5] // ello
  9. Arrays in C: int numbers[10]; for (int i = 0;

    i < 10; i++) numbers[i] = 0; length is not a property shortcut for pointer arithmetic (non initialized, out of bound errors write in memory) Arrays in Go: var a[3]int = [3]int{1,2,3} var b[3]int = [...]int{1,2,3} a[2] // 3 len(a) // 3 Fixed lenght Passed by value
  10. Slices var a s[]int = []int{1,2,3} s1 := a[1:3] //

    2, 3 s2 := make([]int, 3) // {0, 0, 0} var s3 s := append(s, 4) / s := append(s, s1...) // 1,2,3,4,2,3 Dynamically sized Automatically resized by append
  11. Maps var values = make(map[string]int) values["pr"] = 23 values["bdu"] =

    28 delete(m, "bdu") if age, ok := values["pr"]; !ok { /* ... */ } // if not found, age = 0 value no native equivalent in C
  12. Functions func f(a, b int) (string, error) { /* ...

    */ } multiple return values (error handling) rst class values can be anonymous func getAdder(toSum int) func(int) int { return func(arg int) int { return arg + toSum; } }
  13. Memory management in C heap vs stack int* bird =

    malloc(sizeof(int)) // lives in the heap, need to be freed int* f() { int b = 5; return &b; // BAD! } e cient the dev is in control of what lives in the stack and what in the heap easy to forget the lifecycle of malloc'ed objects
  14. Memory management in Go There are pointers too, which is

    good: the dev is in control of what is passed by value and what by reference func f() int* { int result = 28 return &result //result stored in the heap } garbage collected pointers are references to live objects: there is no way to mess up with the memory
  15. Unsafe package The package name is self explanatory. It provides

    Pointers. A pointer value of any type can be converted to a Pointer. A Pointer can be converted to a pointer value of any type. func Float64bits(f float64) uint64 { return *(*uint64)(unsafe.Pointer(&f)) } Pointer arithmetic f := unsafe.Pointer(uintptr(unsafe.Pointer(&s)) + unsafe.Offsetof(s.f))
  16. It's safer Prevents side e ects related to distractions assignement

    between di erent types requires explicit conversion int n = 1400.5 / 'c'; // ????? variables are initialized with zero values MyStruct* s = (MyStruct*) malloc(sizeof(MyStruct)); memset(s, 0, sizeof(MyStruct)); no pointer arithmetic MyStruct s; int* i = (&s + 3 * sizeof(int)); // ????
  17. Doing more with (a bit) less No ; nor ()

    around ifs Type inference, short variable declaration var s = "devfest" s1 := "devfest" // only inside a function Multiple return values (also, named return values) func f(arg int) (res int, err error) { /* ... */ }
  18. Doing more with less Range loops (in maps, slices and

    strings) for index , _ := range(mySlice) { /* ... */ } defer() to call nalizing operations inside a function no break in switch, switch cases can be conditions
  19. User de ned data structures C structs: struct Book {

    char title[50]; char author[50]; }; Book b; // a mess memset(&b, 0, sizeof(Book)); strcpy(b.title, "Golang"); Go Structs type book struct { title string author string } var b book // zero value var b1 book{title:"Golang"} // literal initializer
  20. Methods Just a special kind of functions (they have a

    receiver) Explicitly associated to objects or pointers type Dog struct { Animal } func (d Dog) bark() { // bark } func (d *Dog) feed() { d.weight++ }
  21. Interfaces Abstract types de ning a behaviour Satis ed implicitly

    type Driveable interface { func Drive() int } func (c Car) Drive (km int) {/* */} func (b Bike) Drive (km int) {/* */} var c Car{wheels : 4} var d Driveable = c Can be checked c, ok := d.(Car) // true c, ok := d.(Bike) // false switch d.(type) { case Car: // }
  22. Encapsulation in C static modi er for functions and variables

    Local to a .c le Directly related to exported names available during linking
  23. Encapsulation in Go: The visibility is related to the package

    Multiple les can belong to the same package The visibility is toggled by uppercasing / lowercasing Every le belongs to a package package mypackage var Exported int var notExported string
  24. pthread.h Provide primitives to create and synchronize threads together. Mutexes

    Condition variables Semaphores Multithreading is today's goto : - hard to read / understand - di cult to debug What we need is a better solution for concurrency, easier to understand and to handle
  25. Enters goroutine Goroutines are lightweight threads managed by the Go

    runtime. go myFunction() Why lighter? smaller (altough variable) stack many goroutines can be share a single os thread scheduling not invoked periodically but as a consequence of synchronization It is practical to create hundreds of thousands of goroutines in the same address space
  26. Channels A channel is a communication mechanism between two goroutines

    ch := make(chan int) We can send values to a channel ch <- 23 or receive from a channel res := <- ch or just check if send has happened <- ch Channels can be bu ered or unbu ered. Sending on a full channel blocks the sender, receiving from an empty channel blocks the receiver.
  27. An example package main import "fmt" func main() { source

    := make(chan int) incremented := make(chan int) go func() { for i := 0; i < 100; i++ { source <- i } close(source) }() go func() { for s := range source { incremented <- s + 1000 } close(incremented) }() for res := range incremented { fmt.Println(res) } } Run
  28. Coding style Survey by stackover ow (https://stackover ow.blog/2017/06/15/developers-use-spaces-make-money-use-tabs/) Go fmt

    formats the code in the "go way" easier to read easier to write no tabs vs spaces discussions!
  29. Building Workspace: root tree pointed by $GOPATH variable bin/ hello

    # command executable pkg/ linux_amd64/ github.com/fedepaol/example/ stringutil.a # package object src/ github.com/fedepaol/example/ hello/ hello.go # command source stringutil.go golang.org/x/image/ bmp/ reader.go # package source writer.go # package source Most Go programmers keep all their Go source code and dependencies in a single workspace
  30. Building (2) go build package non main packages are compiled

    and thrown away executables are compiled and left in the current dir go install package non main packages are deployed in $GOPATH/pkg executables in $GOPATH/bin go get package (as in github.com/fedepaol/example/hello) downloads the package and its dependencies installs it
  31. Deploying There is no need for shared libraries. Not even

    libc. The go runtime is linked together with the executable. The absence of external dependencies makes the deployement a lot easier than a C executable.
  32. There's more! re ection race detector C interoperability rich standard

    library awesome echosystem (https://github.com/avelino/awesome-go) integrated testing framework native cpu and memory pro ling cross compiles awesome linters
  33. Doing a lot with few lines of code Javascript var

    result = tasks.map(function (task) { return (task.duration / 60); }).filter(function (duration) { return duration >= 2; }); Java Arrays.stream(myArray) .filter(s -> s.length() > 4) .map(s -> s.toUpperCase()) .toArray(String[]::new); Kotlin strings.filter { it.length == 5 }.sortedBy { it }.map { it.toUpperCase() }
  34. What I found Go focuses on being explicit rather than

    implicit being readable being safe getting sh*t done
  35. Where to go from here O cial website golang.org (http://golang.org)

    Interactive Tutorial tour.golang.org (http://tour.golang.org) E ective go golang.org/doc/e ective_go.html (https://golang.org/doc/e ective_go.html) Mailing list groups.google.com/forum/#%21forum/golang-nuts (https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21forum/golang-nuts)