Go: GDG Mauritius Meetup
The monthly GDG Mauritius meetup was about Go this time. It was hosted by MSCC and there was a special guest was present
After a stop at the Post Office in Port Louis, I managed to reach the Flying Dodo just in time for the meetup. This time "Go: All you ever wanted to know but didn't dare to ask..." was happening, an event by GDG Mauritius.
Yusuf kick off the meetup by thanking everyone for their presence during these festive periods and continued to introduce Gophers.mu and their upcoming logo. He also welcomed Natalie, a Google Developer Expert, who is currently on the island and was kind enough to join the event and even do a presentation !
Last talk for the year at @GDGMauritius!
Thanks to @JKirstaetter and the team for hosting the event and bringing the #golang community to the island.
And look at the potential gopher+dodo logos🥰 pic.twitter.com/dzMeRjY6wK
— Natalie (@NataliePis) December 21, 2019
There was a short introduction about Go, and promises of go. It was very interesting to see how much the creators of the language care about the philosophical aspect of designing a language.
Jeshta, showed a demo about how to download images of cat using a simple Go program and walk the audience through the code line by line. The session was short and sweet and the code seemed very readable. That's one thing I appreciate about go.
First talk:
Jeshta Bhoyedhur is giving examples on concurrency and wait groups in #golang pic.twitter.com/PxwQqvdwEL— Natalie (@NataliePis) December 21, 2019
Grant, a fellow Mauritian gopher who doesn't exist on the internet, intervened to share his love for Go and explain a few concepts. The intervention was interactive and very well received by the audience.
It was already time for a short break/networking session which lasted around 15 minutes.
When we came back from the break, Natalie spoke about about her early journey and there was an intriguing mention about DefCon which she quotes as inspirational. She commented she was mind-blown after attending the conference and how are we not getting hacked everyday. Which triggered a change in her career path.
There was a very enlightening presentation titled : "Going Secure with Go".
Q&A after @NataliePis's talk on #Golang and #Security. pic.twitter.com/pG4qTAj1SD
— Ish Sookun (@IshSookun) December 21, 2019
Crypto random library was recommended over simple random library or using the Time library to reduce predictability.
A random conversation emerged when Natalie mentioned escaping SQL statements to avoid sql injection. Jochen said one shouldn't have sql statements in your code at all and a few attendees mentioned about how practical that is in reality. It was a fun little interaction which could be a debate/meetup in itself.
After her presentation there was a few questions from the audience. I naturally asked about applying the security recommendation to frontend stacks.
Natalie summing up the dependencies checklist of her talk
She tweeted some resources that we could use to verify and keep up to date with security news, get better at solving problems and getting started with go.
To all the new gophers who have attended the talk at @GDGMauritius today, here is a great first step to get familiarized with #golang
Intro to the language:https://t.co/MsEhUnBEhE
Go exercises:https://t.co/Hfa4Lidptk
Vulnerablities database:https://t.co/eyZs8PU9ip
— Natalie (@NataliePis) December 21, 2019
Lunch break of 30minutes!
When we resumed, Mr Daniel spoke about the startup atmosphere in Berlin. He shared his experience and there were a lot of interesting questions from the audience ranging from work environment, working permits, visas, salary range, culture clash and more. The crowd was very engaged and there were a lot of interesting ideas flowing around.
After my talk and a lunch break - talking about the Berlin tech scene @GDGMauritius pic.twitter.com/Kgyij1qswF
— Natalie (@NataliePis) December 21, 2019
A practical workshop session followed where audience members who brought laptops were invited to install go and have a hands on feel of the language while being assisted by member of Gophers.mu
Gopher.mu helping the workshop attendees
The session ended at 4pm sharp and everyone is looking forward to the next Gophers.mu meetup !