3 difference between make and new in Go

I found make and new very interesting and hence decided to list down the differences:

1. new ---> returns pointer
   make ---> returns an initialized value of type T

2. new ---> initializes to 0 value of the type
   make ---> does not initialize to 0 value of the type

3. new ---> used for all types
   make ---> used for only slices, maps and channels

Comments

[Nathan Dane]

In what circumstance would you use new(StructType) over something like &StructType{}? I tend to use the latter everywhere as it's easier later to add fields.

[Anusha Bhat]

Even I use &StructType{} most of the times. During initialization if the values of the fields are not known, new(StructType) is good to use as it initialises them to zero values of the fields.

[Nathan Dane]

I’ve attempted to use new(StructType) for the last 2 days and I’ve found that it does make intention easier to read when skimming through code. It especially helps when unmarshaling json/protobuf into a struct as I quite often miss out the & to create a pointer in my haste and wonder why it doesn’t work later! new eliminates this as it is always a pointer! 😋