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"And obviously, an even better pattern is to actually deal with the error" How would you deal with NewFromString? https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/shopspring/decim

by eweise 5y ago

"And obviously, an even better pattern is to actually deal with the error" How would you deal with NewFromString? https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/shopspring/decimal#NewFromString https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/shopspring/decimal#NewFromStri... Try different strings? Maybe run through some AI code to figure out what the string really should have been? Most errors you just have to throw your hands up and declare something's wrong. I write in Go and Kotlin and Kotlin has been much less buggy because errors naturally flow up where they are logged and stop the normal execution. I've seen a number of examples in Go where the error was not returned, causing silent failures.

marcus_holmes 5y ago
There's a ton of static code analysis tools for Go that check whether the error is actually handled/passed/etc - I'd say they're almost mandatory they're so useful :) edit: The thing with NewFromString is that the string you're trying to convert to a decimal can't be. So yes, you're going to have to try a different string if you want this to work. Or you could deal with it a different way - maybe you could see if it converts to a float and then convert the float to a decimal? And in the typical exception-using code base I've seen, there's one try block at the bottom of the stack with a catch block that throws whatever error message it has at the user. Anything is better than this.
- eweise 5y ago
  I work in the banking industry so I can't just try different strings until it works. These strings might represent real money. If it can't be parsed then something is screwed up. The program is reading the wrong file, the data is corrupt but my point is, there is nothing the program can do to fix it. The program simply needs to throw or log and error and someone needs to research what happened. Here's another example: // NewV4 returns a randomly generated UUID. func NewV4() (UUID, error) { return DefaultGenerator.NewV4() } You want a UUID but it might give you an error. What do you do except also return an error?
- iainmerrick 5y ago
  There's a ton of static code analysis tools for Go that check whether the error is actually handled/passed/etc - I'd say they're almost mandatory they're so useful :) I find this slightly at odds with the argument (made by other people, not you) that in Go you’re not reliant on the IDE, because all the program behaviour is immediately visible. I don’t really understand the objection to using an IDE to look up overridden operators and so on. It seems like it’s in the same category as having a type-checking compiler that knows how to look up a type definition and check that you’re using valid operations. There’s no way all the information you need is going to be nearby in the text in any reasonably-sized program.

by eweise 5y ago

marcus_holmes 5y ago

There's a ton of static code analysis tools for Go that check whether the error is actually handled/passed/etc - I'd say they're almost mandatory they're so useful :) edit: The thing with NewFromString is that the string you're trying to convert to a decimal can't be. So yes, you're going to have to try a different string if you want this to work. Or you could deal with it a different way - maybe you could see if it converts to a float and then convert the float to a decimal? And in the typical exception-using code base I've seen, there's one try block at the bottom of the stack with a catch block that throws whatever error message it has at the user. Anything is better than this.

eweise 5y ago
I work in the banking industry so I can't just try different strings until it works. These strings might represent real money. If it can't be parsed then something is screwed up. The program is reading the wrong file, the data is corrupt but my point is, there is nothing the program can do to fix it. The program simply needs to throw or log and error and someone needs to research what happened. Here's another example: // NewV4 returns a randomly generated UUID. func NewV4() (UUID, error) { return DefaultGenerator.NewV4() } You want a UUID but it might give you an error. What do you do except also return an error?
iainmerrick 5y ago
There's a ton of static code analysis tools for Go that check whether the error is actually handled/passed/etc - I'd say they're almost mandatory they're so useful :) I find this slightly at odds with the argument (made by other people, not you) that in Go you’re not reliant on the IDE, because all the program behaviour is immediately visible. I don’t really understand the objection to using an IDE to look up overridden operators and so on. It seems like it’s in the same category as having a type-checking compiler that knows how to look up a type definition and check that you’re using valid operations. There’s no way all the information you need is going to be nearby in the text in any reasonably-sized program.