Programs vs. Libraries

[jbuberel]

Another topic I'd like your opinion on...

With the new experimental vendor folder support coming in 1.5, and the rapid adoption of Dave Cheney's gb project, I've been thinking about how to make the Go newcomer experience better.

For example, if you are developing a program in Go, I'd argue that you should:

• Make binary builds available on Mac, Linux, Win
• Use semantic versioning to label those releases
• Not ask users to download and install Go in order to build your program source
• Not have to care about whether your program can be installed via go get

However, if you are creating a library in Go, then you really should:

• Make sure that your library is go get-able
• Your project should be listed/registered in godoc.org
• Your top-level readme should include information about API stability, etc.

Do you think this distinction is important? If so, how best to communicate that to the developer and user communities?