Go for backend developers: web services with net/http

Go is a popular language for backend services. It compiles to a single binary, starts instantly, handles many concurrent connections well and has a standard library that covers most of what an API needs. Since Go 1.22, the built in router supports HTTP methods and path parameters, so many teams now build services with no web framework at all.

This course teaches you to build a production style JSON API with idiomatic Go. We build Lendr, a small service for tracking items lent to friends, with users, items, loans and reminders.

What you will learn

• Go project structure, modules and packages for a service
• Routing with net/http and the enhanced ServeMux patterns
• Decoding, validating and encoding JSON
• Middleware for logging, recovery, request IDs and authentication
• PostgreSQL with pgx, transactions and type safe queries with sqlc
• Using context for timeouts and cancellation
• Structured logging with log/slog
• Testing handlers and database code, and running with the race detector
• Graceful shutdown, configuration and a small Docker image

Who it is for

You already program in another language, such as Python, JavaScript or Java, and you know the basics of Go syntax, or are willing to pick them up quickly with the short refresher in section one. You understand HTTP and SQL at a basic level.

The focus is on clarity: small functions, explicit errors and code your teammates can read. We avoid clever abstractions and keep dependencies to a minimum.