IDEs are the applications used to assist the programmers in the development of other applications. They are designed to enclose almost every programming task in a single application. IDEs increase the productivity of programmers and speed up the development of software products.
There are free IDEs available on the internet, including Visual Studio Code (VS Code), Eclipse, etc. Some of the IDEs that require payments to use them are Goland and IntelliJ IDEA. These IDEs can be used for both editors and debugging of the Go commands.
Web-based (online) IDE’s can also be used for the development of software, but they provide limited functionality. The main advantages of web-based IDEs are that it requires less setup effort, reduce personal hardware requirements, etc.
Some of the free web-based IDE’s URLs are given below:
https://play.golang.org
https://www.onlinegdb.com
In this tutorial, we will use VS Code as the IDE for Go.
VS Code is a free IDE used in operating systems such as Windows, macOS, and Linux. VS Code developed by Microsoft. VS Code supports many other programming languages like HTML, JavaScript, Java, CSS, etc.
Follow the steps below to install VS Code:
(A default destination location will be given, but if you want to install VS Code on a different location, then click the “Browse…” button to select another destination location.)
Now the installation of VS Code is successfully completed on your system.
Now it is required to configure VS Code to use Go in it. While doing the configuration, make sure to enable the internet connection on your system.
Follow the steps and corresponding pictures given below to configure the VS Code:
The status of the installation will be displayed in the OUTPUT window as shown below:
Now, VS Code is ready to use Go in it.
Creating and executing a go program using a text editor and command prompt is the same as creating and executing a go program in the VS Code.
Now follow the steps to run a simple basic Go program in VS Code:
package main
import ("fmt")
func main(){
fmt.Println("Hello, World!")
}
Open the folder where helloworld (your Go file) file is saved to see the executable file.
This executable file can be accessed in the VS Code as shown in the screenshot below: