dingo

Dingo Language Patterns

Overview

Dingo is a meta-language for Go that transpiles .dingo files to .go files, providing modern language features while maintaining 100% Go ecosystem compatibility.

Repository: https://github.com/MadAppGang/dingo

When to use Dingo:

• You want concise error handling with the ? operator
• You need sum types (enums) and pattern matching
• You prefer functional patterns with lambdas
• You want Option[T] and Result[T,E] types
• You need safe navigation (?.) and null coalescing (??)

Key Philosophy: Dingo makes common Go patterns more concise and safer without departing from Go idioms. The transpiled Go code is clean and idiomatic.

Project Structure

project/
├── cmd/
│   └── api/
│       └── main.dingo         # Entry point
├── internal/
│   ├── handlers/              # HTTP handlers (.dingo files)
│   ├── services/              # Business logic
│   ├── repositories/          # Data access
│   └── models/                # Domain models
├── pkg/                       # Public packages
├── configs/                   # Configuration
├── go.mod                     # Go module file
├── go.sum                     # Go dependencies
└── .dingo/                    # Generated .go files (gitignored)

Build & Development Workflow

Commands

dingo build          # Transpile to Go and build binary
dingo run main.dingo # Transpile and run directly
dingo go             # Generate .go files only (for CI/CD)
dingo fmt            # Format Dingo files

Development Cycle

1. Write: Edit .dingo files
2. Transpile: Run dingo go to generate .go files in .dingo/
3. Type Check: gopls works on generated .go files for IDE support
4. Build: dingo build or go build on generated files

IDE Integration

gopls (Go language server) works on the generated .go files:

# After dingo go, gopls sees:
.dingo/
├── cmd/api/main.go
├── internal/handlers/user.go
└── internal/services/user.go