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Hyrum’s Law in Golang

(abenezer.org)
316 points thunderbong | 3 comments | 21 Nov 24 07:12 UTC | HN request time: 0.415s | source
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adontz ◴[21 Nov 24 08:28 UTC] No.42202248[source]▶
This is a good example of "stringly typed" software. Golang designers did not want exceptions (still have them with panic/recover), but untyped errors are evil. On the other hand, how would one process typed errors without pattern matching? Because "catch" in most languages is a [rudimentary] pattern matching.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/csharp/language-ref...

replies(1): >>42202266 #
KRAKRISMOTT ◴[21 Nov 24 08:30 UTC] No.42202266[source]▶
Go has typed errors, it just didn't use it in this case.
replies(7): >>42202277 #>>42202378 #>>42202617 #>>42203319 #>>42205600 #>>42206561 #>>42208318 #
1. Svip ◴[21 Nov 24 08:32 UTC] No.42202277[source]▶
The consumer didn't, but the error in the example is typed, it's called `MaxBytesError`.
replies(2): >>42202292 #>>42203341 #
2. eptcyka ◴[21 Nov 24 08:37 UTC] No.42202292[source]▶
Matching the underlying type when using an interface never feels natural and is definitely the more foreign part of Go's syntax to people who are not super proficient with it. Thus, they fall back on what they know - string comparison.
3. simiones ◴[21 Nov 24 11:45 UTC] No.42203341[source]▶
Only since go 1.19. It was a stringy error since go 1.0 until then.