Sure, but defer still fairs worse than RAII does even in this example. In this particular example, yes, you'll need to call flush yourself and handle the error

Sure, but defer still fairs worse than RAII does even in this example. In this particular example, yes, you'll need to call flush yourself and handle the error yourself: which you'd still need in a GC'd lang/lang w/ "defer", in addition to remembering to close the file (which the RAII example will have your back on).