Golang productivity hack part 2: IDE plugins

Intro

My last blog post was the first of my productivity hacks series, where we learn to automatically generate Golang structure from JSON data.

Here is the link: Golang productivity hacks Part 1: generating data structures

In this new post, we will go through some of my favorite plugins on my IDE: Goland.

Please note that some of these are probably also available on VS Code.

The plugins window

To open the plugin window, simply press:

Ctrl-Shift-A

And write plugins and finally press enter. It should look like this:

JSON parser

JSON parse will help you validate your JSON files (talking to you, missing comma) and format them nicely.

Markdown

Similar to JSON parser, it will help you write proper Markdown file and visualize it, with 2 windows side by side, here is an example:

Git or GitToolBox

These git plugins are very interesting for those that like a GUI over git.

When installed, you will have access to a git context menu and you can do operations like git blame, rebase, push, etc. quickly.

Kite

Kite is a plugin for AI-based automatic code completion. I am currently testing it but it is worth a go (no puns intended).

One simple thing I like is that it will auto-complete this code snippet that I write very often:

if err != nil {
    return nil
}

AWS Toolkit

If you work with AWS, the AWS toolkit will help you manage things like credentials, AWS profile, etc.

If you use GCP or Azure, make sure to check if a similar plugin is available.

Python community edition

If you need to write some script in your go repo, install this plugin! It will let you have most Pycharm features for free and increase productivity.

Others to consider

Other includes:

Docker, CSV, Protocol buffers, Vim, .env file support

Bonus: Nyan progress bar

This one is not about productivity but about having a little fun. It will simply change the progress bar with a Nyan car, for instance:

Note that Gopher is another progress bar to consider.