Why can't anyone point me to a concrete example of how to hash and store user passwords? Or how to build the rest of an authentication system?
Why is to so frustrating simply trying to figure out how to share my database connection with my handlers, or how to email users without slowing down every web request?
Can anyone just tell me how to organize my code? Why are there so many varying opinions on this? Which one is right? Should I be using MVC? What is this domain driven design? Ugh! I want to give up!
You have heard that Go is great for web apps, but getting started leads to so many questions that it can feel overwhelming. But what if you could build a web application this week, starting today? What if you had someone to guide you through the standard libraries and help you understand how they all work together?

"All you need is the standard library" - Everyone on the internet
I can't tell you the number of times I heard this when learning to create web applications using Go. After a while, it started to haunt me.

I started learning Go by reading the standard library and every tutorial I could find, but I quickly ran into a problem.

Rather than creating HTML templates and rendering real dynamic content, we were instead using fmt.Fprint() to print hard coded HTML.

Or when we needed access to a database we would create a global connection and share it with ALL of our code. Yikes!

As a result, I couldn't figure out how to get past creating my first few pages. It was frustrating, to say the least.

While getting stuck I kept asking myself questions like...

"How do I share my database connection with my handlers?"
"How do I hash user passwords securely? What is the correct way to make sure a user is authenticated and has access to this resource?"
"How should I organize my code? Where does the MVC pattern fit into all of this? Is my design RESTful? Will it be hard to maintain?"
No matter how many tutorials I read, I always felt like there was something left out. Some part of the bigger picture that wasn't explained, leaving me unsure of how to proceed.

The underlying problem was that every single tutorial I read oversimplified things, and what I needed was a comprehensive course showing me how all the pieces worked together.

Web applications are complex systems
After building my umpteenth silly TODO app, single page wiki, or some other contrived example I nearly gave up.

My progress was painfully slow, and every time I solved one problem I found myself facing two new ones. I still had no idea how to connect all of the pieces together.

It was as if someone had handed me toolbox, taught me how to use each tool, and then said "You now know how to build a house!" The hell I do! My house would blow over within the week if that was how construction worked.

It isn't enough to simply learn how each tool works. Knowing how to use a tablesaw, nailgun, and power drill don't qualify me to construct a house. You need to learn how every piece of a house gets connected together first. How the roof connects to the frame, how the frame is supported by the foundation, how much space to leave for air vents in the frame, and countless other details. In short, you need to know how everythign works together.

So why do we keep thinking this approach will work for web development? Why do we keep telling new Gophers, "All you need is the standard library to build web applications!"

Technically it isn't inaccurate, but it sure as hell isn't the ideal way to learn and it leads to developers slugging through countless tutorials, reading endless docs, and trying hundreds of bad approaches before they finally get it right. And even then they aren't confident what they did is right. They just know it hasn't failed yet.

But what if you didn't have to struggle through hundreds of tutorials?
What if you didn't have to read countless tutorials? What if you didn't have to guess at how to hash and store a user's password? What if you had confidence that your authentication was truly secure? You would finally be able to rest easy at night knowing you aren't letting your users down. Or you would be able to start actually building that app so you can meet your first customers. And most importantly, you could finally start enjoying the benefits of using Go for web development.

Web Development with Go can help you cut through all the complexity and finally become the developer you know you should be.

Web development with Go absolutely saved me from giving up on Go. Before finding this course I kept hitting roadblock after roadblock. I can't tell you how excited I was when I realized just how approachable and productive this course is. I went from struggling to get even the most basic tasks completed to actually building out my own app idea. I can't wait to release it!
Web Development with Go is the course I wish I had.
This course is the result of over a year of work and research. Time spent reading documentation, source code, blog posts, and anything else I could get my hands on. Writing thousands of lines of code, refactoring endlessly, and constantly seeking better design patterns.

Web Development with Go will save you months of research, trial and error, and nights scratching your head. After completing the course you will...

‣ Know exactly how to initialize your database connection and give the rest of your code access to it
‣ Have clear examples of how and when to email users.
‣ Be positive that you are salting and hashing your passwords correctly
‣ Feel confident saying, "Yes, my authentication system is safe and secure!"
‣ Know exactly how to organize your code using MVC so that it encourages a RESTful design.
‣ And so much more!
All of this is possible because this is not your run of the mill 30 minute tutorial. It is a comprehensive breakdown of every aspect of web development, teaching everything from how to create the most basic web application all the way to preparing your code and deploying it in a production environment. The course spans over 38 hours of screencasts and the included ebook is over 700 pages long. Even after completing the course, you will be referencing the material for years to come.

(Watch a sample screencast of the first web application we write. Be sure to check out the followup video where we explain what all of this code does afterwards.)

What you will learn
Here are just a few of the things we will be covering in this course. Everything is taught in the context of our final web application, but we will occasionally review a topic in isolation before looking at how it connects to the rest of our application.

How to build a web application from scratch
While following along with the book, you will learn how to build everything from the most basic web server and continuously build upon it until you have a fully fledged web application.

What are MVC and REST?
You will learn all about MVC (model-view-controller) and REST including how using both design principles can make your application significantly easier to maintain and improve as you are learning. Once you understand MVC you will be in a great place to start learning about more advanced design techniques (like domain driven design).

How to create and utilize templates
Static pages are boring, so we will use the html/template package included in Go's standard library to create HTML pages with dynamic content. This will allow us to display custom dashboards, galleries, and images for each user depending on what page they visit and what they have access to.

How to build an authentication system
Web Development with Go will teach you how to build a proper authentication system including how to hash passwords with bcrypt, creating user sessions, avoiding timing attacks, and so much more.

If you aren't 100% certain your authentication system is secure, this is a must-read!

How to interact with a PostgreSQL database
Not only will you learn how to create, update, and delete records using the database/sql package, but we will also cover how to normalize and validate data before saving it to your database. We even cover how to relay validation errors to your end users.

How to process file uploads
Our photo galleries need images, so we will write all of the code necessary to accept file uploads, process those incoming images, and finally serve them back to end users who visit our galleries.

How to send emails to users
No matter how smart your users are, some of them are bound to forget their pssword. We will cover how to utilize services like Mailgun to send emails to our customers when this happens, giving them a way to restore access to their account.

How to use the Dropbox API
If you purchase a package with the bonus content you will also learn how to interact with the Dropbox API, including implementing oauth2 to get access to a user's Dropbox folders and importing images from a user-specified directory to create a photo gallery.

Plus many more topics
This is only a small subset of all the things we will learn. Check out what you will build or read the Chapter List to get a better idea of everything we cover, and if you have any questions don't hesitate to email me if you are curious about a specific topic.

[i]also You can watch my other last: