Building Modern CLI Applications in Go

Evolve the humble CLI with Go and unleash the next generation of powerful, flexible, empathy-driven interfaces. Finally, join a community of other CLI developers and distribute within the popular Homebrew package management tool!

Key Features

• Discover how Go enables the development of powerful, elegant, and intuitive CLIs
• Explore a range of CLI development aspects and pick up a vast array of best practices
• Create impressive interfaces that are both fun and user-friendly, and learn how to distribute them

Book Description

Let's face it: GUIs can only do so much. Sure, they have their place - they're intuitive and user-friendly - but for productivity, nothing beats a CLI. Many organizations these days settle for the GUI, thinking no alternative offers similar accessibility but better functionality. Does this describe your organization? Pick up this book and get them to think again.

Building Modern CLI Applications in Go helps you achieve what most assume isn't possible: an interface that rivals the GUI in elegance yet surpasses it in high-performance execution. Through its practical, step-by-step approach, you'll gain everything you need to harness the power and simplicity of the Go language to build CLI applications that revolutionize the way you work.

After a primer on CLI standards and Go, you'll be launched into tool design and proper framework use for true development proficiency. The book then moves on to all things CLI, giving you full mastery of everything from arguments and flags to errors and API calls. Later, you'll dive into the nuances of empathic development, so that you can ensure the best UX possible, before you finish up with build tags, cross-compilation, and container-based distribution.

By the end of this guide, you'll be fully equipped to take the performance and flexibility of your organization's applications to the next level.

What you will learn

• Explore good CLI philosophy and enact it effectively using Go
• Master Go code structure, testing, and other essentials
• Add a colorful dashboard to your CLI using engaging ASCII banners
• Use Cobra, Viper, and other frameworks to give your CLI an edge
• Handle inputs, API commands, errors, and timeouts like a pro
• Target builds for specific platforms the right way using build tags
• Build with empathy, using easy bug submission and traceback
• Containerize, distribute, and publish your CLIs quickly and easily

Who This Book Is For

This book is for beginner and intermediate Golang developers who have an interest in developing CLIs and who enjoy learning by doing. You will need to understand basic Golang programming concepts but will require no prior knowledge of CLI design and development.

Table of Contents

1. Understanding CLI Standards
2. Structuring Go Code for CLI Applications
3. Design your tool and its purpose
4. Popular frameworks in Go to speed up and enhance CLI development
5. Processing Different Types of Input via Arguments and Flags
6. Calling External Processes and API commands and Handle Timeouts, and Error Handling
7. Developing for Different Platforms
8. Being Clear, Concise and Consistent with CLIs
9. Empathic Side of Development
10. Interactivity with Prompts and Terminal Dashboards
11. Customizing Go Binaries with Build Tags
12. Cross Compilation Across Different Platforms
13. Using Containers for Distribution
14. Publish your Go binary as a Homebrew Formula with GoReleaser