The runtime is not regular Go code, it's tricky Go code that doesn't have access to the standard library, full of pointer manipulations using unsafe, and with n

The runtime is not regular Go code, it's tricky Go code that doesn't have access to the standard library, full of pointer manipulations using unsafe, and with no heap-escaped variables. It also has to deal the fact that the C compiler didn't produce stack maps with type information (and even if it did, it would not have been that useful since it abused uintptr's), so Go code must be really careful about when the stacks are allowed to be moved and how pointers must get proper types. In short, the Go code in the runtime is about at the same level at C code. Don't forget that this is a straight 1-to-1 translation; this is not the time to introduce new bugs. After it's all done, the runtime code can be refactored and it might become cleaner and smaller. PS: there are no go errors, and hence no if err != nil statements in the runtime.