>why they'd add an interface that accumulates everything into a giant array by default While I can't speak for Go's authors' mindset, here's my view: One arra

>why they'd add an interface that accumulates everything into a giant array by default While I can't speak for Go's authors' mindset, here's my view: One array of records is about as simple interface as possible, and it's good enough for many use cases. Contrasting with that, reading the directory with repeated readdir()'s or equivalent is fraught with hidden pitfalls. You end up being responsible for sorting, for resuming syscall in case of a signal or other interruption, for handling changes to the list of files during read... and probably other concerns above and beyond that.