---
title: "#172: Should 'Context' Go Away in Go 2?"
publication: "Go Weekly"
issue: 172
published_at: "2017-08-10"
canonical_url: "https://golangweekly.com/issues/172"
---

Go Newsletter 172   . 

[Read this on the Web](http://golangweekly.com/issues/172) 

[Go Newsletter](http://golangweekly.com) Issue 172 — August 10, 2017     

Featured [Typed 'nil's in Go 2](https://dave.cheney.net/2017/08/09/typed-nils-in-go-2?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) Dave gives you some code to think about before considering the future for typed nils in Go 2. Dave Cheney [Context Should Go Away for Go 2](https://faiface.github.io/post/context-should-go-away-go2/?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) Why 'Context' is bad (“like a virus”?), the good things it does, and how Go 2 could make it all better. Michal Štrba [memguard: Extra Memory Security in Go](https://cryptolosophy.io/memory-security-go/?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) [memguard](https://github.com/awnumar/memguard) is a pure Go library for handling sensitive values in memory. It uses syscalls, a canary value, and wipes memory when freed to increase security. Awn Umar [ActiveGo -The world’s only commercially supported Go distribution](http://start.activestate.com/activego/?utm_source=Go-Weekly&utm_medium=banner&utm_term=&utm_content=17-08-10-Go-Newsletter&utm_campaign=17-08-10-go-weekly-banner) Satisfy your company’s requirements for commercial support, security and license compliance with ActiveGo for Linux, MacOS, and Windows. [Try the Community Edition for free](http://start.activestate.com/activego/?utm_source=Go-Weekly=banner==17-08-10-Go-Newsletter=17-08-10-go-weekly-banner). ActiveStatesponsored[![\](https://copm.s3.amazonaws.com/d36d9b73.jpg)](http://start.activestate.com/activego/?utm_source=Go-Weekly&utm_medium=banner&utm_term=&utm_content=17-08-10-Go-Newsletter&utm_campaign=17-08-10-go-weekly-banner) [Pitfalls of Context Values and How to Avoid or Mitigate Them in Go](https://www.calhoun.io/pitfalls-of-context-values-and-how-to-avoid-or-mitigate-them/?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) Why using context values can become problematic, some alternative approaches that don’t use context values and when they are appropriate. Jon Calhoun [Always Be Closing: The Tale of a Resource Leak](https://medium.com/square-corner-blog/always-be-closing-3d5fda0e00da?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) The process and tools used to track down a subtle resource leak and the resultant simple fix. Square [Excelize: Go Library for Reading and Writing Excel Documents](https://github.com/360EntSecGroup-Skylar/excelize?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) Want to write or read Excel spreadsheets from Go? This is what you need. Jobs [Senior Software Engineer - Infrastructure Backend](http://jobs.jobvite.com/careers/newrelic/job/ogUA5fwz?__jvst=Job%20Board&__jvsd=GoNewsletter&utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) We are looking for a Full Stack Engineer with a strong interest in building, deploying, and operating back-end tools and services that process enormous quantities of data in performant ways. New Relic [Want to Build The Future? Get Hired Today.](https://hired.com/join/?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=%28b2c%29%28l-all%29%28r-swe%29%28q3-17-go-weekly%29) Save time on your job search. Hired delivers multiple, high-quality job offers to you. Sign up today. Hired In Brief [Go 1.9 Release Candidate 2 Released](https://groups.google.com/d/msg/golang-announce/lcUUfQalrr4/pvJm8_4LBwAJ?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) news google.​com [dotGo: The European Go Conference (Paris, November 6)](http://www.dotgo.eu/?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) news Sam Boyer and Jess Frazelle join the line up of speakers for this year’s conference. dotConferences [Goroutines Make Concurrency (Almost) Easy](http://blog.teamtreehouse.com/goroutines-concurrency?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) tutorial Treehouse [How to Inject Build-Time Variables into Your Binaries](https://blog.alexellis.io/inject-build-time-vars-golang/?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) tutorial Alex Ellis [Hacking Go Interfaces from the Inside Out](https://dev.to/loderunner/hacking-go-interfaces?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) tutorial How would you define an interface for a Logging API if you started from inside Logger? Charles Francoise [Go Slices Are Not Dynamic Arrays](https://appliedgo.net/slices/?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) tutorial Applied Go [Easy Middleware without External Packages in Go](https://dev.to/kevburnsjr/easy-middleware-in-go?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) tutorial Kevin Burns [Accessing AWS with the Go SDK](https://blog.vidsey.io/post/awsandgo/?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) tutorial Vidsey Blog [How to Sell Your Team on CI/CD](https://circleci.com/blog/how-to-sell-your-team-on-ci-cd/?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=august&utm_content=go-newsletter) tutorial A step-by-step guide to updating legacy processes in your org. CircleCIsponsored [A Farewell To Go: Why One Developer Is Leaving](https://www.churchwood.at/posts/a-farewell-to-go/?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) opinion Lukas Schörghuber [Hexya: An ERP and Business Application Development Framework](http://hexya.io/?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) tools Hexya [vim-go 1.14 Released: The Go Plugin for vim](https://github.com/fatih/vim-go/releases/tag/v1.14?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) tools Fatih Arslan [[eBook\] The Ultimate Guide to Building Database-Driven Apps with Go](https://www.vividcortex.com/resources/the-ultimate-guide-to-building-database-driven-apps-with-go?utm_campaign=Go%20Newsletter&utm_source=ppc&utm_medium=Apps%20with%20Go) This book contains years of wisdom from experts and the fastest way to learn how to connect to a database with Go. VividCortexsponsored [SmartCrop: A Pure Go Smart Image Cropper](https://github.com/muesli/smartcrop?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) code Finds good image crops for arbitrary crop sizes. Christian Muehlhaeuser [ipd: IP Address Lookup Service](https://github.com/mpolden/ipd?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) code The code that powers [ifconfig.co](https://ifconfig.co). Martin Polden [vlan-nats: Create a Virtual LAN Using NATS](https://github.com/rapidloop/vlan-nats?utm_source=golangweekly&utm_medium=email) code RapidLoop    

Go Newsletter is curated by [Peter Cooper](https://twitter.com/peterc) and [Glenn Goodrich](https://twitter.com/ruprict) [Read this issue on the Web](http://golangweekly.com/issues/172) [See our archives](http://golangweekly.com/issues) [Change your email address](*|UPDATE_PROFILE|*)  [Stop getting this newsletter](*|UNSUB|*)  

Published by [Cooperpress](https://cooperpress.com/)
Fairfield Enterprise Centre, Lincoln Way, Louth, LN11 0LS, UK