10 ms·

> The GOPATH environment variable now has a default value if it is unset. It defaults to $HOME/go on Unix and %USERPROFILE%/go on Windows. [0] Finally. This is

by nishs 10y ago

> The GOPATH environment variable now has a default value if it is unset. It defaults to $HOME/go on Unix and %USERPROFILE%/go on Windows. [0] Finally. This is going to make it easier for newcomers to the Go ecosystem, since commands such as "go get" will now work out of the box. [0] https://beta.golang.org/doc/go1.8#gopath https://beta.golang.org/doc/go1.8#gopath

sofaofthedamned 10y ago
Biggest thing on this release to be fair. Unbelievably simply but so effective, about time.
- voidlogic 10y ago
  What about the 5-10% performance boost? For me thats like getting a few hundred thousand dollars worth of free hardware...
k2xl 10y ago
Everyone I know who has learned Go has encountered this issue. "What's this GOPATH env variable? What should it be set to?" When I personally learned Go this (and how go do/doesn't do vendoring) was the hardest thing to learn. It's strange that it took this long to get this feature out. Now if they could figure out a way to get go get to work nicely with private repos out of the box without SSH config hacks that'd be great..
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ashark 10y ago
  I like Go, but the GOPATH thing gave a very bad first impression.
tedunangst 10y ago
Curious why they didn't pick something like .go to be more out of the way.
- stouset 10y ago
  Because it's supposed to be your actual development workspace. To be honest, I think this is one of the most asinine parts of the go development workflow (and there are a lot of contenders…). Having to organize all your go projects separately from everything else just because they happen to be developed in that particular language is maddening.
  - fixermark 10y ago
    Java seems to have gone that road. Not sure if it was a bad idea or not.
    - Psyonic 10y ago
      In what way did Java go that road? Java doesn't impose any constraint on location across projects.
    - StevePerkins 10y ago
      What are you talking about? It's simple to mix Java and C++ (or whatever) within the same project. Wellllllllll... until you actually start to write code against JNI, of course. But the project LAYOUT is simple!
      - wtetzner 10y ago
        > Wellllllllll... until you actually start to write code against JNI, of course. JNA[1] makes things much simpler. [1] https://github.com/java-native-access/jna https://github.com/java-native-access/jna
  - Manishearth 10y ago
    Yeah, this gets super annoying when you need your project written in other languages to contain go code. I worked on the YCM support for godef, we eventually had to fork the library and rewrite paths since there was no way of pinning to a version within YCM. Libraries written with github paths for `go get` do not play nice with living outside of gopath, and libraries written with relative paths don't work with go get (even though this is something that go could support)
echelon 10y ago
Why does Go require a special path for projects to be on? Python doesn't. Rust doesn't. This just seems annoying for no particular reason.
- majewsky 10y ago
  Indeed. I have a couple of Go projects that are released in the classical manner as tarballs, which users can extract anywhere and compile with `make && make install`. This used to work okay-ish until Go 1.5. Then Go 1.6 introduced vendoring support (i.e. you put the code for the libraries you need into your own repo) which is very nice if it works, so I wanted to have it. But `go build` stubbornly refuses to look at vendored code when you are not in the exact correct location inside the GOPATH. To preserve the familiar build semantics, I set up the GOPATH inside the repo. Roughly like this: $ git clone https://github.com/foo/bar && cd bar $ mkdir -p .gopath/src/github.com/foo $ ln -sTf ../../../.. .gopath/src/github.com/foo/bar $ GOPATH=$PWD/.gopath go build github.com/foo/bar Of course, all that bullshit can be nicely tugged away in the Makefile. For example: https://github.com/sapcc/swift-drive-autopilot/blob/a3d5d02ba86d59c6aa7aadbc9bfcef8b527bffa4/Makefile https://github.com/sapcc/swift-drive-autopilot/blob/a3d5d02b... You can find this either hilarious or sad. I like the irony in using make(1) to patch up the deficiencies of a tool that was created decades after it.
  - ernsheong 10y ago
    There is a tool called gb that helps you with this https://getgb.io/ https://getgb.io/ (I have no affiliation with gb)
    - majewsky 10y ago
      While we're shamelessly plugging: I actually wrote my own vendoring tool after being confused by the ecosystem. It's a shell script of maybe 30 LOC: https://github.com/holocm/golangvend/blob/master/golangvend https://github.com/holocm/golangvend/blob/master/golangvend I hope to abandon it for an official solution, though, given that it appears and is good.
  - 10y ago
krakensden 10y ago
Arg, that's my GOROOT. For a while it was going to be ~/gocode, when did it get changed?
- sagichmal 10y ago
  The default only applies if you don't have your own GOPATH explicitly set, so you'll be fine.
  - Merovius 10y ago
    …until, at some point, you run a go command from a different shell or something, where GOPATH isn't set for some reason ;)
amckinlay 10y ago
And why not ~/Library/ for Mac?
gjvc 10y ago
Think I would have preferred $HOME/lib/go/ on UNIX ...
- fnord123 10y ago
  XDG doesn't have a XDG_LIB_HOME but I would guess it should be $HOME/.local/lib

by nishs 10y ago

sofaofthedamned 10y ago

Biggest thing on this release to be fair. Unbelievably simply but so effective, about time.

voidlogic 10y ago
What about the 5-10% performance boost? For me thats like getting a few hundred thousand dollars worth of free hardware...

k2xl 10y ago

Everyone I know who has learned Go has encountered this issue. "What's this GOPATH env variable? What should it be set to?" When I personally learned Go this (and how go do/doesn't do vendoring) was the hardest thing to learn. It's strange that it took this long to get this feature out. Now if they could figure out a way to get go get to work nicely with private repos out of the box without SSH config hacks that'd be great..

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ashark 10y ago
I like Go, but the GOPATH thing gave a very bad first impression.

tedunangst 10y ago

Curious why they didn't pick something like .go to be more out of the way.

stouset 10y ago
Because it's supposed to be your actual development workspace. To be honest, I think this is one of the most asinine parts of the go development workflow (and there are a lot of contenders…). Having to organize all your go projects separately from everything else just because they happen to be developed in that particular language is maddening.
- fixermark 10y ago
  Java seems to have gone that road. Not sure if it was a bad idea or not.
  - Psyonic 10y ago
    In what way did Java go that road? Java doesn't impose any constraint on location across projects.
  - StevePerkins 10y ago
    What are you talking about? It's simple to mix Java and C++ (or whatever) within the same project. Wellllllllll... until you actually start to write code against JNI, of course. But the project LAYOUT is simple!
    - wtetzner 10y ago
      > Wellllllllll... until you actually start to write code against JNI, of course. JNA[1] makes things much simpler. [1] https://github.com/java-native-access/jna https://github.com/java-native-access/jna
- Manishearth 10y ago
  Yeah, this gets super annoying when you need your project written in other languages to contain go code. I worked on the YCM support for godef, we eventually had to fork the library and rewrite paths since there was no way of pinning to a version within YCM. Libraries written with github paths for `go get` do not play nice with living outside of gopath, and libraries written with relative paths don't work with go get (even though this is something that go could support)

echelon 10y ago

Why does Go require a special path for projects to be on? Python doesn't. Rust doesn't. This just seems annoying for no particular reason.

majewsky 10y ago
Indeed. I have a couple of Go projects that are released in the classical manner as tarballs, which users can extract anywhere and compile with `make && make install`. This used to work okay-ish until Go 1.5. Then Go 1.6 introduced vendoring support (i.e. you put the code for the libraries you need into your own repo) which is very nice if it works, so I wanted to have it. But `go build` stubbornly refuses to look at vendored code when you are not in the exact correct location inside the GOPATH. To preserve the familiar build semantics, I set up the GOPATH inside the repo. Roughly like this: $ git clone https://github.com/foo/bar && cd bar $ mkdir -p .gopath/src/github.com/foo $ ln -sTf ../../../.. .gopath/src/github.com/foo/bar $ GOPATH=$PWD/.gopath go build github.com/foo/bar Of course, all that bullshit can be nicely tugged away in the Makefile. For example: https://github.com/sapcc/swift-drive-autopilot/blob/a3d5d02ba86d59c6aa7aadbc9bfcef8b527bffa4/Makefile https://github.com/sapcc/swift-drive-autopilot/blob/a3d5d02b... You can find this either hilarious or sad. I like the irony in using make(1) to patch up the deficiencies of a tool that was created decades after it.
- ernsheong 10y ago
  There is a tool called gb that helps you with this https://getgb.io/ https://getgb.io/ (I have no affiliation with gb)
  - majewsky 10y ago
    While we're shamelessly plugging: I actually wrote my own vendoring tool after being confused by the ecosystem. It's a shell script of maybe 30 LOC: https://github.com/holocm/golangvend/blob/master/golangvend https://github.com/holocm/golangvend/blob/master/golangvend I hope to abandon it for an official solution, though, given that it appears and is good.
- 10y ago

krakensden 10y ago

Arg, that's my GOROOT. For a while it was going to be ~/gocode, when did it get changed?

sagichmal 10y ago
The default only applies if you don't have your own GOPATH explicitly set, so you'll be fine.
- Merovius 10y ago
  …until, at some point, you run a go command from a different shell or something, where GOPATH isn't set for some reason ;)

amckinlay 10y ago

And why not ~/Library/ for Mac?

gjvc 10y ago

Think I would have preferred $HOME/lib/go/ on UNIX ...

fnord123 10y ago
XDG doesn't have a XDG_LIB_HOME but I would guess it should be $HOME/.local/lib