Sockets and pipes generally have SetReadDeadline() and SetWriteDeadline(). With io.Reader and io.Writer in general you have to resort to a separate goroutine an

Sockets and pipes generally have SetReadDeadline() and SetWriteDeadline(). With io.Reader and io.Writer in general you have to resort to a separate goroutine and a channel, otherwise they would have to conform to more restricted interfaces, say ReadDeadliner/WriteDeadliner, which is not always possible.