gong

• 1. About Gong
• 2. Gong basics
  • 2.1. The model
  • 2.2. A gongstruct is a named struct
  • 2.3. A gongenum is a string/int enum
  • 2.4. gongfields are fields within a gongstruct
  • 2.5. Gongnote
• 3. A "hello world" level 1 web application
  • 3.1. Prerequisite
  • 3.2. Generating & running the code with the gongc command
  • 3.3. Injecting Data via REST
  • 3.4. Persistance
• 4. A "hello world" level 2 web application
  • 4.1. Prerequisite

1. About Gong

With gong, a web application is a set of go/angular stacks.

Gong is a work in progress, uses it carefuly

Gong (go + ng) is a framework for rapid web application development (a.k.a. full stack development) based on go and angular. The go back-end uses gin, gorm and sqlite (a pure go sqlite, no cgo needed). The angular front-end uses angular material.

The unit of development in gong is the gong stack (a "stack" in the rest of this document). A stack can import other stacks (both the front end and the back end of a stack are integrated as a whole). The granularity of a stack is similar to an angular components.

Gong goal is that the developper facing complexity should be minimal (see DHH's conceptual compression concept or Rob Pike's design of Go regarding complexity.

2. Gong basics

There are different complexity levels for full stack development:

• level 1 : pure go code that uses gong front-end angular libs (should fit most needs).
• level 2 : go + angular code that combines gong libs and with specific angular code.

This chapter presents level 1 basics.

2.1. The model

The gong elements that forms a gong models are located in one package located in "go/models".

// the package name shall be "models"
package models

// the gong models code
// ...

No particular import is necessary.

gong elements are gongstruct, gongenum, gongfield or gongnote.

2.2. A gongstruct is a named struct

// Hello is a gongstruct
type Hello struct { // it is exported
  Name string // it has an exported "Name" field
}

2.3. A gongenum is a string/int enum

// Gongenums can be of type tring or int.

type AEnumType string // It is exported

const (
	ENUM_VAL1 AEnumType = "ENUM_VAL1_NOT_THE_SAME"
	ENUM_VAL2 AEnumType = "ENUM_VAL2"
)

type CEnumTypeInt int

// values for EnumType
const (
	CENUM_VAL1 CEnumTypeInt = iota
	CENUM_VAL2
)

2.4. gongfields are fields within a gongstruct

// Hello is a gongstruct
type Hello struct { // it is exported
  Name string // it has an exported "Name" field

  // Those are gongfields. They are exported fields of type int, int64, float, float64 bool, string
  Floatfield float64
  Intfield int
  Booleanfield bool

  // Those are gongfields. They are exported fields of type time.Duration or time.Time
  Duration1 time.Duration
  Date time.Time

  // HelloP is a gongfield. It is an exported pointer to a gongstruct within the same package
  HelloP *Hello 

  // HellosP is a gongfield. It is an exported slice of pointers to a gongstruct within the same package
  HellosP []*Hello 

  // AEnum is a gongfield. It is an exported field of a gongenum type within the same pakage  
  AEnum AEnumType

  // CEnum is gongfield
  CEnum CEnumTypeInt
  
}

2.5. Gongnote

Gong provides easy, UML like, diagramming capability of the gong elements. You might want to add notes to diagrams. Gongnotes are for this.

// GONGDOC(NoteOnOrganisation): Note on the organisation
//
// and [models.Bstruct],
// and [models.Astruct],
// and [models.Astruct],
// and [models.Astruct],
// and [models.Astruct.Associationtob],
// having the following const exported identifier allows for
// referencing the note from the UML note and allows for
// renaming
//
// # This is heading 1
//
// ## This is heading 1.1
//
//	-
const NoteOnOrganisation = ""

3. A "hello world" level 1 web application

3.1. Prerequisite

• go 1.24 (see https://go.dev/doc/install)

3.2. Generating & running the code with the gongc command

go install github.com/fullstack-lang/gong/go/cmd/gongc/gongc@main

mkdir helloworld
cd helloworld
mkdir go
mkdir go/models
echo "package models
type Hello struct {
  Name string
  HelloType HelloType
}" > go/models/hello.go
echo "package models
type Country struct {
  Name string
  Hello *Hello
  AlternateHellos []*Hello
}" > go/models/country.go
echo "package models
type HelloType string
const (
  Casual HelloType = \"Casual\"
  Formal HelloType = \"Formal\"
)" > go/models/hello_type.go
gongc -skipStager=false -level1 go/models
cd go/cmd/helloworld
./helloworld -unmarshallFromCode=data/stage.go -marshallOnCommit=data/stage
cd ../../../..
rm -rf helloworld

In a terminal, below commands :

• mkdir creates a helloworld directory
• mkdir generates a sub directory go/models
• echo commands generates 2 go structs in this subdirectory
  • Hello which stores a way to say hello
  • Country which stores a country and an association to the way to say hello in this country
• gongc go/models compiles the models
• ./helloworld run the server

Then, browse to localhost:8080 and add data manualy.

The option -marshallOnCommit=stage let a stage.go generated/updated as each save operation.

3.3. Injecting Data via REST

The backend of a gong application is a REST server. You can interact with the server via REST calls.

curl --request POST \
  --url http://localhost:8080/api/helloworld/go/v1/hellos \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --data '{"Name": "Bonjour"}'

curl --request POST \
  --url http://localhost:8080/api/helloworld/go/v1/hellos \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --data '{"Name": "Bonjorno"}'

curl --request POST \
  --url http://localhost:8080/api/helloworld/go/v1/countrys \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --data '{"Name": "France","HelloID":{"Int64":1,"Valid":true}}'

curl --request POST \
  --url http://localhost:8080/api/helloworld/go/v1/countrys \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --data '{"Name": "Italy","HelloID":{"Int64":2,"Valid":true}}'

3.4. Persistance

4. A "hello world" level 2 web application

4.1. Prerequisite

• go 1.24 (see https://go.dev/doc/install)
• npm version >= 10 (see https://nodejs.org)
• angular version 19 (see https://angular.dev/)

Remove the -level1 arg to the gongc command.