Why I Prefer Structs Over Variadic Functions in Go

Sun, 10 May 2026 00:22:49 +0200

After several years of practicing Go, I must admit that I’m not a big fan of variadic functions¹. I’ll try to explain why and why I greatly prefer using structs.

Definition

Let’s start with a quick reminder of what variadic functions are for those unfamiliar with the concept.

This pattern is generally used to configure options in a flexible/dynamic way when creating an instance of a structure.

Let’s look at a concrete example:

Making Go APIs More Ergonomic with Optional Arguments

Sat, 09 May 2026 11:14:30 +0200

Introduction

In Go, as in all programming languages, it’s sometimes useful to have optional arguments in functions.

The Go language supports this functionality but in a very limited way, as shown in the example below:

func Greetings(name string, age ...int) {
 if len(age) > 0 {
 fmt.Printf("Hello %s, you are %d years old\n", name, age[0])
 } else {
 fmt.Printf("Hello %s\n", name)
 }
}

func main() {
 Greetings("Alice")
 Greetings("Bob", 30)
 Greetings("Chad", 40, 100) // only the first value is used
}

Note

The complete example is available via the Go playground: here.

Programming on Loïc Sikidi

Why I Prefer Structs Over Variadic Functions in Go

Definition

Making Go APIs More Ergonomic with Optional Arguments

Introduction