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Why Function Arguments Are Not Function Colors

The author argues against the idea that all function arguments constitute "colors" in the programming sense, using Go's context.Context as a key example. They propose a more rigorous criterion: function colors should be understood as changes to the dependency graph shape of a call stack, rather than simply being any propagated argument.

Background

Function coloring is a concept in software engineering describing how certain changes (like making a function async) must propagate through all callers in a call chain. This article critiques overgeneralizing the concept to all function parameters.

Source
Lobsters
Published
Sep 9, 2026 at 12:13 PM
Score
5.0 / 10