ELelithrar·Nov 12, 2013
web.go is definitely pretty old/semi-abandoned.
I wouldn't recommend Revel to many (it's Play heritage isn't well suited to Go, IMO) but the Gorilla toolkit—a collection of useful packages that extend net/http, rather than a full-blown framework—is exceptional. mux/pat, schema and sessions are all such useful tools and I've been working with them for a couple of months [in my spare time] as I build a web app w/ Go as a non-programmer.
Some other solid Go web packages/tools:
• beego (https://github.com/astaxie/beego) - a well-maintained, active project if you want to head down the framework route. Closer to Sinatra/Flask than Django/Rails.
• "Bones" (https://github.com/peterskeide/bones) - a useful template for an application/some good design patterns
• nosurf (https://github.com/justinas/nosurf) - CSRF middleware that plugs into net/http
Read the rest
(and therefore works with gorilla/mux or pat)
• gorilla/context (http://github.com/gorilla/context) - request context. Great for passing per-request variables (i.e. CSRF tokens, saved forms, etc) between your middleware and your wrapped handlers. Set up some Get and Set wrappers around your specific keys so you can avoid writing out type assertions every time you want to retrieve the stored object.
• go.stripe (https://github.com/drone/go.stripe) - a fairly complete Stripe library.
• blackfriday (https://github.com/russross/blackfriday) - Markdown processor.
Obviously, frameworks (and ecosystems...) like Flask, Sinatra, Django and Rails have an advantage in that you can get stuff done today: they do a lot for you. And, for many use-cases, performance will never be a problem.
Saying that, writing HTTP logic in Go has been surprisingly easy, and the small amount of extra boilerplate you have to write (if you're sans-framework like me) is nice when you realise how darned fast your application is. Being able to deploy a single binary and front-end it with nginx also reduces a ton of complexity.
PS: Once I finish this thing off over the Christmas break, I'm hoping to write up a few articles on the bits-and-pieces that took a bit of time to "get right". Also have a minimalist (i.e. wraps HandleFunc, not Handler) CSRF package in the works.