I think that the difference between the Go way and exceptions is that exceptions are “automatic” and thus invisible. In a language with exceptions what you get

I think that the difference between the Go way and exceptions is that exceptions are “automatic” and thus invisible. In a language with exceptions what you get up-stack is probably something like: FooException at /path/to/useless/file_1.x:42 /path/to/useless/file_1.x:69 /path/to/useless/file_2.x:108 … /path/to/you/get/the/idea.x:100500 While in properly-wrapped Go code you might get something like: performing request "abcd-1234" on host "pickles-1": requesting "storage-4": querying database "primary": profile: not found And yes, you can attach code location information as well. See, for example, how Rob Pike et al. do error handling in their Upspin project[1] or the popular github.com/pkg/errors module[2]. Can you do that with exceptions? Of course! The problem is that suddenly your code will start to look a lot like "if err != nil". [1] https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2017/12/error-handling-in-upspin.html https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2017/12/error-handling-in... [2] https://godoc.org/github.com/pkg/errors https://godoc.org/github.com/pkg/errors