📘 Week 4 – Crucial Questions

(Collections, Pointers & Memory Basics)

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🔹 Slices & Maps

1. What is the difference between an array and a slice?
2. Why are slices more common than arrays in Go?
3. What happens when you append to a slice?
4. What is the zero value of a slice?
5. What happens when you access a key that doesn’t exist in a map?

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🔹 Pointers & Memory

1. Why does Go have pointers but not pointer arithmetic?
2. What happens when you pass a struct by value?
3. When should you use a pointer receiver?
4. What is the zero value of a pointer?
5. What happens if you dereference a nil pointer?

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🔹 Design & Performance Thinking

1. Why might copying large structs be inefficient?
2. What are the risks of overusing pointers?
3. When is it better to return a value instead of a pointer?
4. What is escape analysis?
5. Why is understanding memory important even in a garbage-collected language?

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