Modernizing

Hi ,

How to modernize source code? One bit at a time. The go fix tool suggests modernizing changes to given code on demand, and gopls does it even on the fly. There are good reasons for modernizing code: the modern variant can be more efficient, more robust, more readable, or any combination of these. Too bad there's no go fix for other parts of our lives!

Summer Break

This newsletter enters a summer break starting after this issue. I'll be back in September, with this newsletter in the form you love, or (talking about modernizing) maybe something else (that you'll maybe love even more?). Besides going on vacation, I'll have to think about a lot during this break, including work, the Applied Go project, and how AI has changed, and will continue to change, the way we produce software.

I'm not sure if this very issue is already a sign of AI reducing people's will or chances to produce remarkable code, insights, or ideas and write about them, but it's the first time the sources I'm scanning for new Go-related articles returned only a single article during the whole week. (Luck has it that it's a good one.) Well, it could be just a midsummer low, and I'm just overthinking it. Maybe everyone is on vacation. But at least, the Go podcasts and the people sharing code were productive as ever.

Happy coding!

–Christoph

Featured articles

Modernizers & go fix

The all-new go fix of Go 1.26 helps to modernize Go code. But there's also the modernize tool that apparently, well, modernizes Go code as well. They even share most of the individual modernizers. Redowan Delowar explains the differences and answers the fundamental question: Which one to use?

Podcast corner

091: Morten tried UI with AI, Dominic wanted to ditched StaticBackend

Dominic St-Pierre and Morten Vistisen discuss progress, challenges, and recent developments in their Go codebases.

I'm So Meta, Even The Airing // Talking about Cup o' Go 2.0

This Cup o' Go episode is about ... Cup o' Go! Jonathan and Shay reflect on three years of their Go news podcast, Cup o' Go, covering key topics like format consistency, audience growth (~1K weekly listeners), and listener feedback. And they share some plans for the future: adding video, enhancing social media presence (including short-form clips), and deepening content by reducing laundry-list news segments.

Quote of the Week: On Go's conservative approach to language evolution

The question isn't whether Go in isolation is in a good place. The question is, against the totality of the programming language space, has Go staked out a unique and useful position? To that the answer is yes. It's hard to find a language designer who both wants to design a new language, a fundamentally radical revolutionary position, but wants one of the main features of that new langauge to be stability, a fundamentally conservative position. I'm glad we have a language taking that position.

– Jeremy Bowers

More articles, videos, talks

Projects

Libraries

nodora-org/nodora: Declarative rule engine for readable & maintainable business rules

The author wrote this rules engine over the course of five months to address their specific needs, but maybe the approach fits other use cases as well.

Tools and applications

Flick-Corp/flick: Share files with simple codes instead of links. Fast, live server or self-hosted and open-source.

Share files by shouting out a code word.

lallero-dev/pappice: Single binary ticketing system for small teams

A small consultancy team tested a few ticketing systems for handling client support, but all candidates felt too complex and heavyweight for their needs. So they built their own: A single Go binary, no DB servers or other extra processes to babysit. With 20-30 MB RAM consumpution, the cheapest VM can host this system.

MarkovWangRR/iso-topology: Isometric architecture diagrams as code — text DSL in, design-grade 2.5D SVG out. Agent-first: LLMs can discover, generate, and validate the DSL.

Ever asked an LLM to draw an architectural diagram? Tell it to use Mermaid and the result is boring. Tell it to generate raw SVG and it becomes a mess. (There's a reason Simon Willison tests every new LLM by requesting a simple task: "Create an SVG of a pelican riding a bike.")

Pushing boxes around in Draw.io or Figma isn't exactly fun, either. So the author of this tool decided to write a compiler that turns a YAML description into an isometric, "2.5D" diagram. And to save them (and you) from having to poke YAML indents around, the tool also acts an MCP server, so the task of creating a diagram becomes a simple prompt.

JustVugg/gonk: Ultra-lightweight, edge-native API Gateway for Go

This API gateway offers JWT, API keys, mTLS, RBAC, load balancing with health checks, and Prometheus metrics on a small footprint.

davesavic/pgsavvy

Browse and query PostgreSQL data in the terminal, lazygit-style.

Completely unrelated to Go

The End of Determinism — What's Left for Engineers When AI Writes the Code · Tom Enden

*"Not too long ago, writing code meant opening an editor and facing a blinking cursor. You were the only thinking participant in the room. Writing code was a monologue.

Now, writing code is prompting. It's iterating. It's pushing back. It's a conversation."* (via)