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I am new to Go and I might be missing the point but why are Go channels limited in the maximum buffer size buffered channels can have? For example if I make a channel like so
channel := make(chan int, 100)
I cannot add more than 100 elements to the channel without blocking, is there a reason for this? Further they cannot dynamically be resized, because the channel API does not support that.
This seems sort of limiting in the language's support for universal synchronization with a single mechanism since it lacks convenience compared to an unbounded semaphore. For example a generalized semaphore's value can be increased without bounds.
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By default, a channel buffer size is 0 also called as unbuffered channel.
Golang provides buffered channels, which allow you to specify a fixed length of buffer capacity so one can send that number of data values at once. These channels are only blocked when the buffer is full. Likewise, the channel on the receiving end will only block when the buffer is empty.
Buffered channels allows to accept a limited number of values without a corresponding receiver for those values. It is possible to create a channel with a buffe. Buffered channel are blocked only when the buffer is full. Similarly receiving from a buffered channel are blocked only when the buffer will be empty.
When a channel is created with no capacity, it is called an unbuffered channel. In turn, a channel created with capacity is called a buffered channel. To understand what the synchronization behavior will be for any goroutine interacting with a channel, we need to know the type and state of the channel.
If one component of a program can't keep up with its input, it needs to put back-pressure on the rest of the system, rather than letting it run ahead and generate gigabytes of data that will never get processed because the system ran out of memory and crashed.
There is really no such thing as an unlimited buffer, because machines have limits on what they can handle. Go requires you to specify a size for buffered channels so that you will think about what size buffer your program actually needs and can handle. If it really needs a billion items, and can handle them, you can create a channel that big. But in most cases a buffer size of 0 or 1 is actually what is needed.
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