Defer

[tovare]

In Python it would be useful to list the

with open('workfile') as f:
read_data = f.read()
f.closed

In addition to or instead of the try except.
https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/inputoutput.html

[peterbe]

I agree! I don't do anything like that with open in Python.

It would probably be better to do something entirely different with the Python example, in the finally: block.

[riggsd]

Agreed. The closest equivalent to Go's defer is not a try/except, but the context manager (aka with statement). See: https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0343/

Of course, the closest thing to Python's try/except that we're supposed to use in Go is the defer statement. You already touch on Go's panic/recover, which is closer in spirit to Python's try/except, though the defer statement is intended as more general purpose.