In particular, we can initialize globals with them at link time instead
of generating code for them in an init() function. Less code, less
startup cost.
But the real reason for this change is binary size. This change reduces
the binary size of hello world by ~4%.
The culprit is fmt.ssFree, a global variable which is a sync.Pool of
scratch scan states. It is initalized with a captureless closure as the
pool's New action. That action in turn references all the scanf code.
If you never call any of the fmt.Scanf* routines, ssFree is never used.
But before this change, ssFree is still referenced by fmt's init
function. That keeps ssFree and all the code it references in the
binary. With this change, ssFree is initialized at link time. As a
result, fmt.init never mentions ssFree. If you don't call fmt.Scanf*,
ssFree is unreferenced and it and the scanf code are not included.
This change is an easy fix for what is generally a much harder problem,
the unnecessary initializing of unused globals (and retention of code
that they reference). Ideally we should have separate init code for
each global and only include that code if the corresponding global is
live. (We'd need to make sure that the initializing code has no side
effects, except on the global being initialized.) That is a much harder
change.