That one time I used Go panics for flow control
In a blog post on noncrab.net, a developer describes an experiment where they used Go panics for flow control, effectively treating panics as exceptions similar to other languages. The project involved a complex state machine where traditional error handling led to verbose code. By using panics, they reduced boilerplate and made the control flow more linear. However, this came with significant downsides: panics can crash the program if not recovered properly, and they bypass Go's idiomatic error handling, making debugging harder. The author notes that while it worked for their specific use case, they do not recommend it as a general practice. The post serves as a cautionary tale about the trade-offs between convenience and safety in Go.
Using panics for flow control in Go risks crashes and debugging nightmares, challenging idiomatic error handling.