Hands-On System Programming with Go

Using reflection in a package

After seeing how reflection works and the kind of complications that it adds to code, we can think about using it in a package we are writing. One of the Go proverbs, from its creator Rob Pike, comes to the rescue:

Clear is better than clever. Reflection is never clear.

The power of reflection is huge, but it also comes at the expense of making code more complicated and implicit. It should be used only when it's extremely necessary, as in the template scenario, and should be avoided in any other case, or at least offer an interface to avoid it, as in the encoding packages.