Re-write of the Pop() method

Under Go's installation, they have an example of priority queue at container/heap/example_pq_test.go
I am pasting the contents of the entire file so that I can ask about the Pop() method.

// Copyright 2012 The Go Authors. All rights reserved.
// Use of this source code is governed by a BSD-style
// license that can be found in the LICENSE file.
// This example demonstrates a priority queue built using the heap interface.
package heap_test
import (
"container/heap"
"fmt"
)
// An Item is something we manage in a priority queue.
type Item struct {
value    string // The value of the item; arbitrary.
priority int    // The priority of the item in the queue.
// The index is needed by update and is maintained by the heap.Interface methods.
index int // The index of the item in the heap.
}
// A PriorityQueue implements heap.Interface and holds Items.
type PriorityQueue []*Item
func (pq PriorityQueue) Len() int { return len(pq) }
func (pq PriorityQueue) Less(i, j int) bool {
// We want Pop to give us the highest, not lowest, priority so we use greater than here.
return pq[i].priority > pq[j].priority
}
func (pq PriorityQueue) Swap(i, j int) {
pq[i], pq[j] = pq[j], pq[i]
pq[i].index = i
pq[j].index = j
}
func (pq *PriorityQueue) Push(x any) {
n := len(*pq)
item := x.(*Item)
item.index = n
*pq = append(*pq, item)
}
func (pq *PriorityQueue) Pop() any {
old := *pq
n := len(old)
item := old[n-1]
old[n-1] = nil  // avoid memory leak
item.index = -1 // for safety
*pq = old[0 : n-1]
return item
}
// update modifies the priority and value of an Item in the queue.
func (pq *PriorityQueue) update(item *Item, value string, priority int) {
item.value = value
item.priority = priority
heap.Fix(pq, item.index)
}
// This example creates a PriorityQueue with some items, adds and manipulates an item,
// and then removes the items in priority order.
func Example_priorityQueue() {
// Some items and their priorities.
items := map[string]int{
"banana": 3, "apple": 2, "pear": 4,
}
// Create a priority queue, put the items in it, and
// establish the priority queue (heap) invariants.
pq := make(PriorityQueue, len(items))
i := 0
for value, priority := range items {
pq[i] = &Item{
value:    value,
priority: priority,
index:    i,
}
i++
}
heap.Init(&pq)
// Insert a new item and then modify its priority.
item := &Item{
value:    "orange",
priority: 1,
}
heap.Push(&pq, item)
pq.update(item, item.value, 5)
// Take the items out; they arrive in decreasing priority order.
for pq.Len() > 0 {
item := heap.Pop(&pq).(*Item)
fmt.Printf("%.2d:%s ", item.priority, item.value)
}
// Output:
// 05:orange 04:pear 03:banana 02:apple
}

What harm may come or is there a fallacy if I had the Pop() method as below(without creating a deep copy of the original slice)

func (pq *PriorityQueue) Pop2() any {
n := len(*pq)
item := (*pq)[n-1]
(*pq)[n-1] = nil  // avoid memory leak
item.index = -1 // for safety
*pq = (*pq)[: n-1]
return item
}

I believe in the original Pop() method, this line creates a deep copy(allocates a new underlying array) for the slice old := *pq. Is that true?

The objects created by the make function, here map and slice, are more like pointers pointing to the location of the data than the data itself.

So old := *pq behaves more like an Alias than data copy.