wtf is go-bindata?

Go-bindata solves a common problem for Go developers: how to bundle files like images, CSS, JavaScript, or HTML templates directly into a compiled program. Instead of shipping your app alongside separate data files that could get lost or modified, this tool converts those files into Go code that gets compiled in. When your program runs, the data is already there, no file system lookup needed. The tool works by reading your files and converting them into Go source code. By default, it compresses the data using gzip to keep your compiled binary smaller, then generates a Go file with functions that let you access any embedded file by name. For example, if you embed a stylesheet, your code can call Asset("style.css") and get back the file contents as bytes. The generated code includes a table of contents so lookups are fast. This is especially useful for developers building web servers, CLI tools, or any standalone application that needs static assets. During development, you can use a "debug mode" that reads files from disk instead of from the compiled binary, so you can tweak your CSS or HTML and refresh your browser without rebuilding. When you're ready to ship, you run the tool without debug mode and now your assets are baked in. You get the same code either way, only the data source changes. The README also covers several advanced options for specific needs: you can strip paths from file names, compress or skip compression, use memory-efficient techniques with restricted platforms, add build tags, or even serve the embedded files through Go's standard HTTP server. It's a fairly flexible tool that handles both simple cases, just embedding a data directory, and complex deployments where assets need special handling.