Katas (形) are practiced in martial arts as a way to internalize the movements and techniques so they can be executed and adapted under different circumstances, without thought or hesitation. Let's try the same with Go code.

I've been learning to program in Go. I work in the sysadmin/devops and security areas so I don't normally get to program every day. But I still want to keep my coding skills fresh. Maybe even improve them. I use gokatas as one of the ways to achieve this.

The approach is pretty low-tech. Go katas is basically a list of packages and commands (package main) that you should understand and then be rewriting from scratch or partially. There's a command to show katas and your progress:

$ go run cmd/gokatas.go -c 2
Kata              Last done    Done  Level     Topics
----              ---------    ----  -----     ------
boring/boring     0 days ago     1x  beginner  concurrency, design
boring/channel    0 days ago     1x  beginner  goroutines, channels
areader           3 days ago     2x  beginner  interfaces, io.Reader
----                           ----
3                                4x 

It's important to practice regularly because repetition creates habits, and habits are what enable mastery. Start by taking baby steps. Set a goal that you can meet, e.g. 15 minutes every day before work. At first it's fine even if you only read through one of the beginner level katas. Use documentation or a search engine if you don't understand something.

After some time it will require much less will power to practice. Your programming moves will start looking simpler and smoother. If you feel comfortable enough with a kata, stop practicing it and pick another one that interests you and is slightly beyond your current ability.

1. Install Go.

2. Fork and then clone the repo: git clone [email protected]:<you>/gokatas.git.

3. Start practicing:

cd gokatas
> katas.md # if you are not me :-)
go doc