Lifetimes Explained: The Annotation Go Developers Never Needed
Go to Rust Series: ← No Garbage Collector | Series Overview | Mut vs Immutable → The Concept Go Doesn’t Need Lifetimes are Rust’s way of tracking how long references are valid—all at compile time. Go doesn’t need lifetimes because the garbage collector tracks reference validity at runtime. Rust needs them because there’s no GC. Go: References Just Work Go: func getFirst(a, b string) string { if len(a) > len(b) { return a } return b } func main() { x := "short" y := "longer" result := getFirst(x, y) fmt.Println(result) } No annotations needed. GC ensures result stays valid. ...