Declaration Syntax

Developers often wonder why the declaration syntax in Go is different from the tradition established in the C family of languages.

C-Style Syntax

The C language describes types with an expression including the name to be declared, and states what type that expression will have.

int y;

The code above declares y as an int. In general, the type goes on the left and the expression on the right.

Interestingly, the creators of the Go language agreed that the C-style of declaring types in signatures gets confusing really fast - take a look at this nightmare.

int (*fp)(int (*ff)(int x, int y), int b)

Go-Style Syntax

Go's declarations are clear, you just read them left to right, just like you would in English.

x int
p *int
a [3]int

It's nice for more complex signatures, it makes them easier to read.

f func(func(int,int) int, int) int

Reference

The following post on the Go blog is a great resource for further reading on declaration syntax.