Rewriting a photo tagger in Go
Programming Snapshot – Go Photo Tagger

© Lead Image © Erik Reis, 123RF.com
In honor of the 25th anniversary of his Programming Snapshot column, Mike Schilli revisits an old problem and solves it with Go instead of Perl.
Hurray! This issue marks the 25th anniversary of my "Programming Snapshot" column, which first appeared in the German edition of Linux Magazine back in October 1997 (originally under the "Perl Snapshot" banner). Times have changed: Now the featured programs in this column mainly use Go, but you might also see Ruby, Python, or even TeX, as was the case recently.
For this dinosaur birthday party, I thought I might rewrite a tool I put together in Perl back in the dot-com era, but looking at it from today's perspective in Go. The photo tagger from 2003 (it was called Image Database [1] or idb
for short) is something I've been wanting to use again for a long time.
The idb
tool assigns one or more tags to a set of photo files, distributed over arbitrary subdirectories somewhere on the hard drive. Once tagged with the tool, the same program can retrieve the photos if you provide the name of the desired tag. The problem with the old Perl code, though, is that you need both the time and the inclination to go through the installation and dependency hell of all the Perl modules used by it. Moreover, many years have passed since then, and some CPAN module developers have broken backward compatibility by changing the original programming interfaces. Luckily, it's 2022, and Go has solved these kinds of installation problems for all time, as you can compile static binaries that run on similar architectures.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Direct Download
Read full article as PDF:
Price $2.95
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Find SysAdmin Jobs
News
-
Kubuntu Focus Announces XE Gen 2 Linux Laptop
Another Kubuntu-based laptop has arrived to be your next ultra-portable powerhouse with a Linux heart.
-
MNT Seeks Financial Backing for New Seven-Inch Linux Laptop
MNT Pocket Reform is a tiny laptop that is modular, upgradable, recyclable, reusable, and ships with Debian Linux.
-
Ubuntu Flatpak Remix Adds Flatpak Support Preinstalled
If you're looking for a version of Ubuntu that includes Flatpak support out of the box, there's one clear option.
-
Gnome 44 Release Candidate Now Available
The Gnome 44 release candidate has officially arrived and adds a few changes into the mix.
-
Flathub Vying to Become the Standard Linux App Store
If the Flathub team has any say in the matter, their product will become the default tool for installing Linux apps in 2023.
-
Debian 12 to Ship with KDE Plasma 5.27
The Debian development team has shifted to the latest version of KDE for their testing branch.
-
Planet Computers Launches ARM-based Linux Desktop PCs
The firm that originally released a line of mobile keyboards has taken a different direction and has developed a new line of out-of-the-box mini Linux desktop computers.
-
Ubuntu No Longer Shipping with Flatpak
In a move that probably won’t come as a shock to many, Ubuntu and all of its official spins will no longer ship with Flatpak installed.
-
openSUSE Leap 15.5 Beta Now Available
The final version of the Leap 15 series of openSUSE is available for beta testing and offers only new software versions.
-
Linux Kernel 6.2 Released with New Hardware Support
Find out what's new in the most recent release from Linus Torvalds and the Linux kernel team.