The only other idea (and it isn't a very good one) I've seen is to put the error as a parameter and let the called function early return if given a non-nil erro

The only other idea (and it isn't a very good one) I've seen is to put the error as a parameter and let the called function early return if given a non-nil error: http://play.golang.org/p/bRdFWBZp5r http://play.golang.org/p/bRdFWBZp5r