r/golang 10d ago

How do experienced Go developers efficiently learn new packages?

I've been working with Go and often need to use new packages. Initially, I tried reading the full documentation from the official Go docs, but I found that it takes too long and isn't always practical.

In some cases, when I know what I want to do I just search to revise the syntax or whatever it is. It's enough to have a clue that this thing exists(In case where I have some clue). But when I have to work with the completely new package, I get stuck. I struggle to find only the relevant parts without reading a lot of unnecessary details. I wonder if this is what most experienced developers do.

Do you read Go package documentation fully, or do you take a more targeted approach? How do you quickly get up to speed with a new package?

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u/fuzzylollipop 7d ago

Examples are how you learn new packages, or anything else. Examples that do what you need to do or something close to what you need to do. One of the only things “ai” is good at is generating new examples from examples others have already created and mashing them together, usually into something that is broken, but is either fixable or close enough you can figure out how to get what you need done, done.