[Question] Clarification on GOPATH requirement in development

[himanshi-singla]

Hi,

While setting up the development emvironment, I had some confusion regarding go module vs go path based setup. I'm using Go version 1.26.0 linux/amd64 in Ubuntu 24.04 (WSL).

In contributing.md, the setup is done outside GOPATH whereas in developer.md the setup uses GOPATH.

I also noticed that the documentation explicitly asks to use go version >= 1.13.0 and the repository does seem to use modules. When setting up without the GOPATH as suggested in contributing.md, I encountered import resolution errors as the makefile sets GO111MODULE=off. So a GOPATH base setup becomes necessary for a seamless environment setup.

I wanted to ask whether Fluid utilises gopath based development or if module based development should also work. If GOPATH is required for setup, it might be helpful to clarify the same in contributing.md.

[mrhapile]

Although Fluid requires Go ≥ 1.13 and has a go.mod, the Makefile sets GO111MODULE=off, which forces GOPATH mode. So currently, development needs to be done inside GOPATH to avoid import issues.

You're right that this is inconsistent with contributing.md — we should clarify that or update the Makefile to fully support modules.

[himanshi-singla]

Thanks for confirming.
@cheyang @RongGu I'd be happy to take this up and submit a PR. Do we want to update contributing.md to clarify the GOPATH based setup or would you prefer modifying the makefile?

[cheyang]

@himanshi-singla Thanks for your suggestions. If you’re interested, please feel free to open a PR that modifies the Makefile and/or any other relevant documentation to adopt module-based development. This would make Fluid more accessible and align us with best practices in the Go community.

[jakharmonika364]

I'd like to take this up if that's okay. Will work on enabling Go modules in the Makefile and updating the docs accordingly.