Initialization in Go: the power of init()

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8 pointsRamshackleJ3 comments

Definitely one of the parts of Go that seems most likely to lead to regret. Unspecified call order. Mandatory startup time penalties just for importing a package. Blech.

(It is handy, though.)

Absolutely! its definitely a stumbling block when you first start getting into golang.

Are the startup penalties for importing a package really that significant? Are there ways of reducing them?

Well, it's up to the package -- you can make it as slow as you want, in theory :).

But I confess it's just a hypothetical problem for me so far -- I haven't yet run into trouble from it yet. I think Go's general culture of restraint and light-weightness may help it here.

(I've had tons of problems w/ this in python, which makes me suspicious of the feature generally.)

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