Man, 2019 felt like a rollercoaster, you know? Being a Virgo, I always try to keep things structured, planned out, but that year just decided to throw a wrench in everything. My career felt a bit… stuck. I was kicking around in a Java shop for a good while, doing the same old stuff, and I just had this nagging feeling it wasn’t going anywhere fast. Every morning, I’d wake up, look at the code, and just feel this heavy sigh coming on. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t exciting either.
I started poking around, just reading online, trying to find something that sparked a bit of fire. I remembered hearing some whispers about this language called Go, how it was supposed to be simple, fast, all that jazz. At first, I just shrugged. Another language, another framework, probably just a fad. But something kept pulling me back to it. Maybe it was the promise of less boilerplate, or the idea of getting things done quicker. I’m a guy who likes efficiency, even if my desk sometimes looks like a war zone.
Picking Up Go: The First Steps
So, I thought, what the hell? I’ll give it a shot. I didn’t have any grand projects in mind, no big company initiatives. It was just me, late at night, after the kids were asleep, probably with a lukewarm coffee by my side. I downloaded it, which was surprisingly easy, and just started messing around. My first programs were embarrassingly simple – “Hello, World!” variations, playing with variables, making little loops. It felt clunky at first, different from what I was used to. No classes, no big inheritance trees, just functions and structs. My brain, accustomed to a certain way of doing things, had to re-wire itself a bit.
I remember trying to build a tiny little API for something utterly useless, probably just to fetch some made-up data. The process was surprisingly smooth. I didn’t get bogged down in endless configurations or chasing down obscure dependencies. It just… worked. Compile, run, boom. That was a breath of fresh air. It was like switching from a complicated machine with too many buttons to something streamlined and direct. I started feeling a buzz, a genuine interest I hadn’t felt in years regarding coding.
The Real-World Application (Kind Of)
Around mid-2019, things at home got a bit hectic. My wife was dealing with some stuff, and I needed to be more present, less chained to the office computer trying to debug some obscure issue from a decade-old system. I needed something that allowed me to get my work done efficiently, quickly, and maybe even remotely if push came to shove. That’s when Go stopped being just a hobby and started looking like a viable tool.
There was this small internal tool at work, a messy Python script that handled some reporting. It was slow, hard to maintain, and nobody really wanted to touch it. I saw an opportunity. I pitched the idea of rewriting it in Go, framing it as a “learning exercise” and a way to “optimize internal processes.” My boss, bless his heart, probably just wanted the thing to work, so he gave me the green light. That was my chance.
I went at it, piece by piece. I didn’t just translate the Python directly. I tried to think in Go terms. I broke down the problem into smaller functions, used goroutines for some of the concurrent data fetching, and kept the code as clean as possible. It was a struggle sometimes, mapping my old habits to this new way. Sometimes I’d hit a wall, swear a bit under my breath, and then go back to the documentation, or scour Stack Overflow for simple examples. There were times I’d just stare at the screen, blank, wondering if I was making a huge mistake, especially when a deadline loomed.
- Figuring out how to handle errors properly, which Go makes you think about.
- Understanding concurrency without shooting myself in the foot.
- Just getting comfortable with the standard library and what it offered.
But slowly, steadily, it came together. The new Go version of the tool was noticeably faster. It spun up quicker, processed the data in a fraction of the time, and was just generally more reliable. People noticed. Not in a “wow, this is revolutionary” kind of way, but in a “hey, that thing is actually usable now” kind of way, which, for an internal tool, is a huge win.
Looking Back at That Virgo 2019
That year was a real turning point. It wasn’t just about learning a new language. It was about finding my stride again, feeling capable and energized in my career at a time when other parts of my life felt a bit wobbly. Go provided that outlet, that challenge, that sense of accomplishment. It gave me a new direction, a fresh perspective, and honestly, a bit of confidence back. It showed me that even when things feel routine or a bit overwhelming, there’s always something new to explore, something to build, something to make a little bit better. It cemented my belief that sometimes you just need to jump in and start coding, even if you don’t know exactly where you’re going.
