Menu
Ok, I have to admit, I don't really use Go very much at all, but I did just observe something that strikes me as odd for a language that strives for minimality and all that good stuff as Go does. I would be surprised if there isn't a legitimate rationale behind it, so that's what I'm looking for.
So when you have a method, you define it like this:
func (s *SomeStruct) Foo(x int) { }
but why have an extra parameter list just for the "receiver", as I think it's called? Would it not be a simpler and more elegant design to just do
func Foo(s *SomeStruct, x int) { }
and then have s.Foo(5) just be translated to a call to a function Foo(s, 5)?
454
Go is a compiled language. This means we must run our source code files through a compiler, which reads source code and generates a binary, or executable, file that is used to run the program.
Syntax. Go's syntax includes changes from C aimed at keeping code concise and readable. A combined declaration/initialization operator was introduced that allows the programmer to write i := 3 or s := "Hello, world!" , without specifying the types of variables used.
Go was intended as a language for writing server programs that would be easy to maintain over time. (See this article for more background.) The design concentrated on things like scalability, readability, and concurrency.
Methods are fundamentally special and different from regular functions.
With your proposal, the line between a function and a method becomes very blurry and it's difficult to figure out how to resolve the above issues.
That said, I think it would be really interesting to design a language with multimethods and interfaces. However, that language would not be Go.
158
If you love us? You can donate to us via Paypal or buy me a coffee so we can maintain and grow! Thank you!
Donate Us With
