Introduction I was guided for many years to write functions that are generalized and to create layers upon layers of abstraction so things don’t break as business requirements change. That the cost of breaking a function signature, for example, is expensive and something that should be avoided. Therefore, write functions that take more generic parameters or hide things in a receiver or context to be less prone to breakage. On the surface this seems like a good and reasonable idea.

Prelude It will be helpful to read this four-part series first on escape analysis and data semantics. Details on how to read an escape analysis report and pprof output have been outlined here. https://www.ardanlabs.com/blog/2017/05/language-mechanics-on-stacks-and-pointers.html Introduction Even after working with Go for 4 years, I am continually amazed by the language. Thanks to the static code analysis the compiler performs, the compiler can apply interesting optimizations to the code it produces. One type of analysis the compiler performs is called escape analysis.

Introduction When I started to work with Go’s channels for the first time, I made the mistake of thinking about channels as a data structure. I saw channels as a queue that provided automatic synchronized access between goroutines. This structural understanding caused me to write a lot of bad and complicated concurrent code. I learned over time that it’s best to forget about how channels are structured and focus on how they behave.

Prelude If you want to put this post in some better context, I suggest reading the following series of posts, which lay out some other fundamental and relevant design principles: Language Mechanics On Stacks And Pointers Language Mechanics On Escape Analysis Language Mechanics On Memory Profiling Design Philosophy On Data And Semantics In particular, the idea of value and pointer semantics is everywhere in the Go programming language. As stated in those earlier posts, semantic consistency is critical for integrity and readability.

Prelude These are good posts to read first to better understand the material presented in this post: Index of the four part series: Language Mechanics On Stacks And Pointers Language Mechanics On Escape Analysis Language Mechanics On Memory Profiling Design Philosophy On Data And Semantics The idea of value and pointer semantics are everywhere in the Go programming language. As stated before in those earlier posts, semantic consistency is critical for integrity and readability.

Prelude This is the final post in a four part series discussing the mechanics and design behind pointers, stacks, heaps, escape analysis and value/pointer semantics in Go. This post focuses on data and the design philosophies of applying value/pointer semantics in your code. Index of the four part series: Language Mechanics On Stacks And Pointers Language Mechanics On Escape Analysis Language Mechanics On Memory Profiling Design Philosophy On Data And Semantics Design Philosophies “Value semantics keep values on the stack, which reduces pressure on the Garbage Collector (GC).

Prelude This is the third post in a four part series that will provide an understanding of the mechanics and design behind pointers, stacks, heaps, escape analysis and value/pointer semantics in Go. This post focuses on heaps and escape analysis. Index of the four part series: Language Mechanics On Stacks And Pointers Language Mechanics On Escape Analysis Language Mechanics On Memory Profiling Design Philosophy On Data And Semantics Watch this video to see a live demo of this code:

Prelude This is the second post in a four part series that will provide an understanding of the mechanics and design behind pointers, stacks, heaps, escape analysis and value/pointer semantics in Go. This post focuses on heaps and escape analysis. Index of the four part series: Language Mechanics On Stacks And Pointers Language Mechanics On Escape Analysis Language Mechanics On Memory Profiling Design Philosophy On Data And Semantics Introduction In the first post in this four part series, I taught the basics of pointer mechanics by using an example in which a value was shared down a goroutine’s stack.

Prelude This is the first post in a four part series that will provide an understanding of the mechanics and design behind pointers, stacks, heaps, escape analysis and value/pointer semantics in Go. This post focuses on stacks and pointers. Index of the four part series: Language Mechanics On Stacks And Pointers Language Mechanics On Escape Analysis Language Mechanics On Memory Profiling Design Philosophy On Data And Semantics Introduction I’m not going to sugar coat it, pointers are difficult to comprehend.

Prelude This post is part of a series designed to make you think about your own design philosophy on different topics. If you haven’t read the following post yet, please do so first: Develop Your Design Philosophy Introduction Systems cannot be developed assuming that human beings will be able to write millions of lines of code without making mistakes, and debugging alone is not an efficient way to develop reliable systems.