Let's see some tips and tricks to work with Go in newer versions.
Let's discuss the changes to the slice package introduced in Go 1.22. Using examples from both Go 1.21 and Go 1.22, we can see some significant improvements.
When concatenating multiple slices in Go 1.21, you would need to use nested append functions. For example, you'd append s1 to s2, then append that result to s3. While this works - outputting "one two three four five six" - it's not the cleanest solution and can be unclear to those reading the code later.
In Go 1.22, this process has been simplified with the introduction of slices.concat. You can now simply write "s4 := slices.concat(s1, s2, s3)" to achieve the same result. This is a significant quality-of-life improvement.
Another important change relates to slice deletion behavior. In Go 1.21 and earlier, deleting elements from a slice could produce unexpected results. For example, when deleting elements from index 0 to 2 in a slice containing [1,2,3,4], the output would be surprisingly confusing - you'd end up with a slice containing three, four, and two slots.
In Go 1.22, they've improved this behavior by zeroing the elements instead, making the outcome more logical and predictable. This change helps prevent errors that were easy to make in previous versions.
These improvements serve two main purposes: the CONCAT function makes code cleaner and more readable, while the new slice deletion behavior helps catch potential errors. The full details of why these changes were implemented can be found in the proposal documentation.
