Go as a scripting language in Linux

Some other potential advantages it might bring:

• build your complex Go project with Go-based build system: no Makefiles, bash or Python - all pure Go!
• easy non-privileged package management out of the box: if you want to use a third-party library in your script, you can simply go get it to your GOPATH
• quick code prototyping on early project stages: short-circuit the “edit->compile->check” cycle, instead immediately execute your source file fail early with strongly-typed scripting language: if you have a typo in your 2k line script, it will fail to start instead of executing first 1800 lines and leave your system in an inconsistent state

There were previous attempts to make Go scriptable using a shebang line, however (mostly because lines starting with # are not valid in Go) the solution is not perfect: you end up with .go files either to be used as scripts only or as real compilable Go programs, but not both. Ignat describes a way how one can use some advanced features of binary execution on Linux to overcome previous problems and make Go truly native scripting language.