proposal: x/tools/cmd/getgo: document and possibly ship in distributions

[jezek]

Feature request:

Provide a go tool to update go to latest stable version, or to a user selected version.

Examples:

Update go to latest stable version.

go version -update

Replace current version with version 1.x.y

go version -update -v 1.x.y

[ALTree]

The version tool currently has a very narrow scope: it just shows the version of the toolchain it's invoked from. I think it's unlikely it'll be expanded to become an installer.

OTOH, we already have a tool called getgo (https://github.com/golang/tools/tree/master/cmd/getgo) that can be used to install go toolchains. Note that (from its docs):

If Go is already installed via this installer it will upgrade it to the latest version of Go.

which is similar to what you're asking.

[jezek]

Thank you for the getgo command, I should have searched harder.

But IMHO this command should be installed by default like gofmt or godoc. Or am I wrong?

[rsc]

go version -update is definitely too difficult. (The go command should not be attempting to overwrite itself.) Changing to a proposal to document and ship getgo.

[rsc]

/cc @andybons for triage. If no one is available now maybe put on hold.

[agnivade]

Shipping getgo is a great idea. From what I see in HN, the community will definitely benefit from this. But there are some pending issues which need attention - #21277, #21533.

Also, note that if one already has a go distribution, it is possible to do go get golang.org/dl/<> to install/update go. Although, it will install in $HOME/sdk and not in /usr/local/go. But ideally, we should promote and use only one tool for installing/updating go.

[andybons]

Putting on hold for now while we figure out next steps so that proposal committee doesn’t need to see it each week.

[matthewhartstonge]

I'll chime in here with a suggestion for standardisation with other programming languages: go upgrade

Via #53596 for inline visibility:

A number of the programming languages I use support upgrade paths built into their tooling which has made keeping up to date extremely easy. This is definitely more of a ✨nice to have✨ for developer experience.

Benefits

• Could make upgrades easier for newcomers.
• Could make it easier for developers to stay up to date.
• Could make polyglot device management easier for teams by the CLI being able to run the upgrade.
• Could help stop human polling of go.dev, twitter or rss release feeds to know when a new version is out.

Prior Art

• flutter upgrade
• rustup upgrade
• Most JavaScript frameworks provide some form of the above, i.e. ember update but this is little different as these are libraries/frameworks than a language.

Example

The following example pinched from the Flutter upgrade flow:

$ go upgrade
upgrading from go1.18.2 to go1.18.3...

Downloading Go SDK...
Expanding downloaded archive...

Upgrading Go...
Go 1.18.3 • channel stable • https://github.com/golang/go.git
revision 4068be5 (28 days ago) • 2022-06-02 04:38:00 +1200

$ go upgrade
go is already up to date on channel stable
go version go1.18.3 windows/amd64

[hyangah]

fyi - getgo is deprecated. #60951
Should we close this proposal?

[dmitshur]

I suspect it should go to Declined as Obsolete. Removed it from Hold so that this can happen.

[rsc]

This proposal is a duplicate of a previously discussed proposal, as noted above,
and there is no significant new information to justify reopening the discussion.
The issue has therefore been declined as a duplicate.
— rsc for the proposal review group