There are several different ways to declare slices in Go.

IMO, there is an implied meaning to each of these different ways:

var foo []T : Declare a slice that the code is going to start appending an unknown number of items to and/or the number doesn’t matter. var foo = []T{ … } or foo := []T{ … } : Where … is a list of items of type T. Declare a slice where the code has already figured out how to fill it and it’s unlikely to change much or at all while referenced. Prefer the later. Also seen as return []T{ … }. foo := make([]T, <len>, <cap>) : Declare a slice of a known capacity which isn’t expected to be exceeded while appending or it’s the minimum capacity slice that will be used. Generally the shorter form w/o capacity (ex. make([]T, <len>)), should only be used when making a slice as the target of a copy or index range manipulation loop.

I feel that these above meanings lead to easier to understand and consume code. I encourage people to consider this when declaring and using slices.