[gabereiser]

go channels aren't threads but means to pass messages between running goroutines (also not threads, but are boxed like one). Go has first-class async built-in using `go func(){ return long_running_thing(); }()` to spawn a coroutine that executes long_running_thing(). The problem with go is you can either lock with a mutex (bad for google scale) or you can do like Erlang do and pass messages. Ok, but how? Channels. Go has support for a special keyword called `chan` that when used with `make` it will allocate a channel of a defined type. Essentially a FIFO queue to grok it in your head. Where you pass in your object of defined type, and the other side reads it in a blocking select to broker the message. Select in Go can block on a number of channels so it's easy to listen for events in this way. SIGTERM, Messages, TCP Data, etc.