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Hyrum’s Law in Golang

(abenezer.org)
317 points thunderbong | 1 comments | 21 Nov 24 07:12 UTC | HN request time: 0.216s | source
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hambes ◴[21 Nov 24 08:20 UTC] No.42202204[source]▶
Solution to the specifically mentioned problem: Don't use string-based errors, use sentinel errors [1].

More generally: Don't produce code where consumers of your API are the least bit inclined to rely on non-technical strings. Instead use first-level language constructs like predefined error values, types or even constants that contain the non-technical string so that API consumers can compare the return value againnst the constant instead of hard-coding the contained string themselves.

Hyrum's Law is definitely a thing, but its effects can be mitigated.

[1]: https://thomas-guettler.de/go/wrapping-and-sentinel-errors

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gwd ◴[21 Nov 24 08:30 UTC] No.42202260[source]▶
The frustrating thing is that the error in question already is a sentinel error -- Grafana (the top-level culprit in the linked search) should be using `errors.As(&http.MaxBytesError{})` rather than doing a string compare.

The whole point of Hyrum's Law is that it doesn't matter how well you design your API: no matter what, people will depend on its behavior rather than its contract.

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1. LudwigNagasena ◴[21 Nov 24 09:14 UTC] No.42202475[source]▶
Early Go lacked lots of features such as errors.As. It was and still is sometimes idiomatic to generate Go because it is so featureless and writing it is often a chore. So it is very much about how well you design your API.