I have to agree; it's basic stuff even for a Python weenie like me.

It's basic stuff because you're a Python weenie; I don't see much use or discussion of decorators outside the Python world.

For what it's worth, this is also a very common pattern in ruby, using blocks:

  def with_error_handler
    if error = yield
      puts "error: #{error}"
    end
  end

  def do_things
    error = do_this
    return "error doing this: #{error}" if error
    error = do_that
    return "error doing that: #{error}" if error
    nil
  end

  with_error_handler do
    do_things
  end

Having said that, I did need to read the Go version more than once to grok it. I theoretically like Go's syntax for defining functions that take functions, but in practice I find it quite hard to scan, especially if there are more parameters on top of the function, or the passed function has multiple returns, or (god forbid!) it takes a function itself - it can all become quite a lot of bookkeeping.

They might not be called decorators, but they're also used in JavaScript and other languages with higher-order functions.

Decorators are a special Python syntax for this use, the more general term for what is going on is "higher-order functions".

Which are pretty important, and not specific to python.

yes, of course, but the discussion I replied to was talking about this specific idiom, this application of higher order functions, and not about the use of higher order functions generally.

I guess I work a lot with average developers. Not every corp is Google.

Since you're a developer let's assume it's just that your estimate is way off :) Multiply it by 3 and pad it with an extra 10% or so.