A Case Study of Go Channels and Goroutines

Hamza Sheikh

2022-11-17 02:37

Let's talk about Go channels and Goroutines and how we can get started with them using a semi-practical example.

In our case we will calculate all prime numbers from 2 to 500,000. The reason for picking this example is that determining a number is prime takes CPU time and it's an independent enough task that we can use threads to concurrently process multiple numbers. By using channels to distribute the work to Goroutines we get a well rounded way to learn about these concepts.

At the end, we will implement the same thing in Python. We will compare the implementation differences between Go and Python and how long it takes to run equivalent programs. Spoiler alert: Go is much better suited for this task.

GOPROXY and GOPRIVATE

Hamza Sheikh

2022-11-03 20:36 (updated 2023-05-04 01:13)

We need to use GOPROXY and/or GOPRIVATE when working with private-only Go modules or a mix of private and public modules.

My macOS Setup

Hamza Sheikh

2022-09-27 19:26

I like to setup macOS my way. A companion git repo, new-mac, helps me automate the process to some extent.

GitLab and go get

Hamza Sheikh

2022-06-02 01:30 (updated 2024-02-13 23:46)

I was trying to run go get on a git repository hosted on a private GitLab instance. This repository was stored under a sub-group. I was working from a non-default branch. Since it is a monorepo the module/package was in a subdirectory. So a combination of four factors complicated matters for me.

Swift FAQs

Hamza Sheikh

2022-02-13 05:19

These Frequently Asked Questions are for those starting to learn Swift. As I start my journey I have a lot of questions. I'm documenting those here from the perspective of someone who has been programming for a long time in Python and has worked in other languages when needed (e.g. bash, Groovy, Go, PowerShell, etc.).

Useful FreeBSD Commands

Hamza Sheikh

2022-02-11 07:09

Are you like me and forget all the awesome things you learn about FreeBSD? My solution is to write this post and collect those commands and tricks in a single place.

Learn Go with Examples

Hamza Sheikh

2021-12-01 18:19

I always wanted to spend more time learning Go. After a long break I finally got a chance to take it up seriously. The best lesson for me was to not learn it from scratch like I did with my first programming language. I learned a few basics first from the official documentation and Learn Go Programming - Golang Tutorial for Beginners. Since I'm already well experienced in writing good sized code bases in Python, I decided to dive right in and implement a project on top of Azure SDK. One big advantage of this approach was that I could learn from working examples in Azure documentation and build my knowledge over time. The second advantage was that I was building something useful right away that kept my motivation up; I wasn't building some abstract thing where I also needed to conjure a problem and solution.

How I Created My First FreeBSD Port

Hamza Sheikh

2019-03-31 20:11 (updated 2019-06-10 23:54)

I created my first FreeBSD port recently. I found that FreeBSD didn't have a port for GoCD, which is a continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) system. This was a great opportunity to learn how to build a FreeBSD port while also contributing back to the community.

Edit: This post was mentioned in BSD Now episode 294.

Handle SIGHUP with Python asyncio

Hamza Sheikh

2019-03-09 16:25

Python's asyncio enables a variety of use cases and workflows. In this post we'll explore the ability to send a SIGHUP signal so one async task (or more) can reload its configuration and continue. It's similar in concept to the nginx -s reload command where nginx reloads its configuration without restarting.