why is golang interface internally an int

<p>This is totally different from java. I&#39;ve read many articles, but seems like none of them dealing with the design purpose. Is there a TL;DR version of why is this?</p> <hr/>**评论：**<br/><br/>Sythe2o0: <pre><p>Where did you get the impression that an interface was an int? As a datatype, an interface is a collection of functions. In implementation, it&#39;s a pointer to a type and a value. </p></pre>kostix: <pre><p>Please read this go-to article — <a href="https://research.swtch.com/interfaces" rel="nofollow">&#34;Go Data Structures: Interfaces&#34;</a> by Russ Cox.</p> <p>Note that it in the up-to-date &#34;reference&#34; implementation of Go (there are many in fact) &#34;short&#34; values (those which are less-than-or-equal to the size of the platform&#39;s pointer) are no longer cached in the interface values but this is an implementation detail you should safely ignore.</p></pre>paul2048: <pre><p>Cause it&#39;s a pointer?</p></pre>nemith: <pre><p>At some point all values in a computer is just a number. In this case it would probably be a pointer to a memory location.</p></pre>