Why is there int but not float in Go?

Question

In Go, there's the type int which may be equivalent to int32 or int64 depending on the system architecture. I can declare an integer variable without worrying about its size with:

var x int

Why isn't there the type float, which would be equivalent to float32 or float64 depending on my system's architecture? I wish I could also do:

var x float

Answer 1

float were removed in the release 2011/01/20.

You can still use a short variable declaration:

x := 0.

But as mentioned in the GO FAQ:

For reasons of portability, we decided to make things clear and straightforward at the cost of some explicit conversions in the code.

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You can see the debate before 2011 in this thread:

I'm a little dismayed even to see the suggestion of getting rid of the unsized float and complex types.
People haven't had to really deal with this problem for a generation (a human generation, not a computer generation; the > early 90s was the last time this was really an issue), but this is exactly the moment in time when I think it's becoming relevant again.
Between the transition to 64-bit chips and the transition to non-Intel based platforms (mobile chips, GPUs, etc), I think it's a huge mistake to take out these types.

The problem with the analogy between integer types and float types is that:

• in the case of integer types you don't care about the size unless it overflows.
• In the case of float types, you always need to care about the size, because it always affects your answer (unless you're only doing arithmetic involving small integers * 2^n, in which case it's exact, in which case you'd be better off with a fixed-point representation).
  So there isn't the same possibility of "I just want a good representation".

There has never been a speed advantage to 32-bit floats except in terms of memory use (and cache), so the existing 32-bit float type isn't defined as a "fast" float. It's just there (I presume) because that's what it's called in C. I wouldn't object to that if the float64 were called "double", which it is in most languages I know.

But I really think the language would be nicer without the "float" type.
Size really does matter for any floating-point use, either because of memory consumption or because of required precision.