2 ms·

It's not a secret; they're all over the place. The article title is "Executable examples in Go". You shouldn't editorialize titles, especially when it makes th

by arp242 3y ago

It's not a secret; they're all over the place. The article title is "Executable examples in Go". You shouldn't editorialize titles, especially when it makes the title significantly worse. Edit: seems the article title has changed or is A/B tested so never mind I guess (can't delete since there are replies), but it's still not a "secret".

mynameisvlad 3y ago
Are we looking at the same article? Its title quite clearly is “Go’s best-kept secret: executable examples” so the title here is only minorly editorialized.
- jrockway 3y ago
  I also like how the HN submitter changed the name of the programming language to "Golang". I guess they also call Ruby "ruby-lang" since they didn't get "ruby.org"?
  - mynameisvlad 3y ago
    Golang is a common way to refer to Go, especially for SEO purposes. “Go” is hard to search for. https://go.dev/doc/faq#go_or_golang https://go.dev/doc/faq#go_or_golang I use “golang” for clarity all the time, and I’m sure many others do as well. There’s no ambiguity you’re talking about the language then.
    - arp242 3y ago
      I personally strongly prefer to use Go, and would never use "golang" or "Golang", but I don't mind if other people do and I'd never complain about it. The reason for this is simply that I don't like the sound of the word "golang"; there are some other words I avoid for similar reasons, I think everyone has a few of those. The thing is that the article title uses Go while the submission here uses Golang. I wouldn't be too happy if someone submitted one of my articles and changed words like that, especially if it's to something I dislike. That's also why I complained about the editorializing in the first place, because I'd be a bit peeved if someone added something like "best-kept secret" in there (but the article title changed, so that's now a moot point). Conversely, I'd also never change "golang" to "Go" when submitting something.
      - Jtsummers 3y ago
        > I wouldn't be too happy if someone submitted one of my articles and changed words like that gus_leonel appears to be a pseudonym for the author of the post. They have essentially no comments and most of their submissions are related to this Bitfield Consulting. So it's the author editorializing their own submission titles.
      - Waterluvian 3y ago
        I use Golang because Go is horrible to search for. I also get into a habit of “Rust lang” because of the video game. Yes, I could do a bunch of search engine customization stuff or pick someone else’s favourite engine. But this is simpler.
      - mynameisvlad 3y ago
        Based on the submitter’s posting history and change in original article title, I’m going to go on a limb and say that the submitter is the original author. Yeah, the names don’t match, but out of all of the things they submitted, at least half are articles from this site. But beyond that, I mean, does it matter? You might not appreciate it, sure, but you’re also not the original author. I’d get the argument if the author came in and said it, but at this point this just seems like complaining for complaining’s sake and you not agreeing with the phrasing used in the article or submission title. That’s certainly your opinion to have, but is there any benefit to expressing it? This doesn’t seem like a relevant discussion about the article contents.
        arp242 3y ago
        > I mean, does it matter? You might not appreciate it, sure, but you’re also not the original author. Well, no, but I'd rather not assume anything: just let the author pick the title. (I assumed that "gus_leonel" wasn't the author, since John Arundel has his own HN account under his regular "bitfield" username, but they do post a lot from bitfieldconsulting, so idk).
        mynameisvlad 3y ago
        If the original author has a problem with it, they are free to come in and make the complaint themselves. It’s your opinion to have but not your argument to make and while you may not appreciate it, even if the author isn’t the submitter (I still very much think they are), they clearly did considering the article title was changed to more closely match the submission, and they have a keyboard and can make the argument for themselves if they are irked by the changes. All this discussion seems to be doing is derailing the comment threads. Almost half the comments here are not about the article itself but your opinions on the words used in the title. This is also a funny way to not assume anything: > (I assumed that “gus_leonel” wasn’t the author > Well no, but I’d rather not assume anything I don’t see the benefit of this discussion existing in the first place, let alone continuing it, so I’m going to stop here.
- Jtsummers 3y ago
  The article (at the linked page, not here) title was changed. The original was as GP described it, and in the last few minutes it was altered to match the HN title.
- arp242 3y ago
  It shows like that for me too now, but I am 100% sure this wasn't the case a few minutes ago. I copy/pasted the title.
  - mynameisvlad 3y ago
    [dead]
- HerrFolgreich 3y ago
  In arp242's defense, I opened the article a couple of minutes ago and it showed the same title he was faced with until I refreshed the page.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jchw 3y ago
  It seems as though the submitter is also the article author and changed it on the page to match the HN title. https://web.archive.org/web/20230117212610/https://bitfieldconsulting.com/golang/examples https://web.archive.org/web/20230117212610/https://bitfieldc... This is an interesting conundrum. Clearly the new title was chosen because it sounds more alluring; I mean, it hit the front page. But also, the OP could've easily done this prior to submitting and it would be totally normal, since people adjust article and post titles all the time. Does come off as mildly sneaky when you do it in this order, but maybe I'm just nitpicky.
mperham 3y ago
https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/
jerf 3y ago
It certainly isn't a secret in the sense that they didn't want you to know about this feature, but it is a de facto secret in that you can find people who have been programming in Go for year who don't realize they exist. In addition to the other replies you can already find in this HN discussion mentioning that, I can attest to the fact that I've personally introduced them to multi-year programmers in Go as well. I hypothesize that a very simple and easy-to-make mistake created this situation, and it is as simple as this: Godoc collapses the examples. Behind undistinguished links. Look at the current rendering for the documentation for net/http, the core HTTP package: https://pkg.go.dev/net/http https://pkg.go.dev/net/http Your challenge is to scroll through the package with the scrollbar, looking for the Examples. Of course, if enough people try this, some will find them quickly. Someone will simply jerk their mouse and scroll right to it in a quarter of a second, of course. But in general, they're not easy to find, even when I'm telling you to look for them. If you don't even know they are there they are super easy to miss. The main listing for the examples is between the Index and the Constants. In the left section breakdown, they don't get their own top-level section but are instead by default buried unexpanded below Index, where I would personally assert they don't belong. Even if you scroll to the documentation for a specific function that includes an example, such as Hijacker: https://pkg.go.dev/net/http#Hijacker https://pkg.go.dev/net/http#Hijacker , I think it's very easy to be scanning through and miss the little Example link in all the noise. And again, in this context I'm calling your attention to it; in normal circumstances I think link blindness kicks in and people can read these docs for years without catching them. And then of course even if you do catch them it's easy to come away thinking it must be something special the standard library can do but you can't, because that is a Go thing, and so few 3rd party packages avail themselves of this. But you can easily do them yourself. It's little more than a slightly specially-formatted test function.
- arp242 3y ago
  Well, it doesn't really matter – my main complaint was that the title was editorialized in a way that I personally wouldn't appreciate for my own article, but now the article title changed and the submitter may be the article author (not entirely clear). I would have deleted my previous post if I could.
- 3y ago

by arp242 3y ago

mynameisvlad 3y ago

Are we looking at the same article? Its title quite clearly is “Go’s best-kept secret: executable examples” so the title here is only minorly editorialized.

jrockway 3y ago
I also like how the HN submitter changed the name of the programming language to "Golang". I guess they also call Ruby "ruby-lang" since they didn't get "ruby.org"?
- mynameisvlad 3y ago
  Golang is a common way to refer to Go, especially for SEO purposes. “Go” is hard to search for. https://go.dev/doc/faq#go_or_golang https://go.dev/doc/faq#go_or_golang I use “golang” for clarity all the time, and I’m sure many others do as well. There’s no ambiguity you’re talking about the language then.
  - arp242 3y ago
    I personally strongly prefer to use Go, and would never use "golang" or "Golang", but I don't mind if other people do and I'd never complain about it. The reason for this is simply that I don't like the sound of the word "golang"; there are some other words I avoid for similar reasons, I think everyone has a few of those. The thing is that the article title uses Go while the submission here uses Golang. I wouldn't be too happy if someone submitted one of my articles and changed words like that, especially if it's to something I dislike. That's also why I complained about the editorializing in the first place, because I'd be a bit peeved if someone added something like "best-kept secret" in there (but the article title changed, so that's now a moot point). Conversely, I'd also never change "golang" to "Go" when submitting something.
    - Jtsummers 3y ago
      > I wouldn't be too happy if someone submitted one of my articles and changed words like that gus_leonel appears to be a pseudonym for the author of the post. They have essentially no comments and most of their submissions are related to this Bitfield Consulting. So it's the author editorializing their own submission titles.
    - Waterluvian 3y ago
      I use Golang because Go is horrible to search for. I also get into a habit of “Rust lang” because of the video game. Yes, I could do a bunch of search engine customization stuff or pick someone else’s favourite engine. But this is simpler.
    - mynameisvlad 3y ago
      Based on the submitter’s posting history and change in original article title, I’m going to go on a limb and say that the submitter is the original author. Yeah, the names don’t match, but out of all of the things they submitted, at least half are articles from this site. But beyond that, I mean, does it matter? You might not appreciate it, sure, but you’re also not the original author. I’d get the argument if the author came in and said it, but at this point this just seems like complaining for complaining’s sake and you not agreeing with the phrasing used in the article or submission title. That’s certainly your opinion to have, but is there any benefit to expressing it? This doesn’t seem like a relevant discussion about the article contents.
      - arp242 3y ago
        > I mean, does it matter? You might not appreciate it, sure, but you’re also not the original author. Well, no, but I'd rather not assume anything: just let the author pick the title. (I assumed that "gus_leonel" wasn't the author, since John Arundel has his own HN account under his regular "bitfield" username, but they do post a lot from bitfieldconsulting, so idk).
        mynameisvlad 3y ago
        If the original author has a problem with it, they are free to come in and make the complaint themselves. It’s your opinion to have but not your argument to make and while you may not appreciate it, even if the author isn’t the submitter (I still very much think they are), they clearly did considering the article title was changed to more closely match the submission, and they have a keyboard and can make the argument for themselves if they are irked by the changes. All this discussion seems to be doing is derailing the comment threads. Almost half the comments here are not about the article itself but your opinions on the words used in the title. This is also a funny way to not assume anything: > (I assumed that “gus_leonel” wasn’t the author > Well no, but I’d rather not assume anything I don’t see the benefit of this discussion existing in the first place, let alone continuing it, so I’m going to stop here.
Jtsummers 3y ago
The article (at the linked page, not here) title was changed. The original was as GP described it, and in the last few minutes it was altered to match the HN title.
arp242 3y ago
It shows like that for me too now, but I am 100% sure this wasn't the case a few minutes ago. I copy/pasted the title.
- mynameisvlad 3y ago
  [dead]
HerrFolgreich 3y ago
In arp242's defense, I opened the article a couple of minutes ago and it showed the same title he was faced with until I refreshed the page.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jchw 3y ago
It seems as though the submitter is also the article author and changed it on the page to match the HN title. https://web.archive.org/web/20230117212610/https://bitfieldconsulting.com/golang/examples https://web.archive.org/web/20230117212610/https://bitfieldc... This is an interesting conundrum. Clearly the new title was chosen because it sounds more alluring; I mean, it hit the front page. But also, the OP could've easily done this prior to submitting and it would be totally normal, since people adjust article and post titles all the time. Does come off as mildly sneaky when you do it in this order, but maybe I'm just nitpicky.

mperham 3y ago

https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/

jerf 3y ago

It certainly isn't a secret in the sense that they didn't want you to know about this feature, but it is a de facto secret in that you can find people who have been programming in Go for year who don't realize they exist. In addition to the other replies you can already find in this HN discussion mentioning that, I can attest to the fact that I've personally introduced them to multi-year programmers in Go as well. I hypothesize that a very simple and easy-to-make mistake created this situation, and it is as simple as this: Godoc collapses the examples. Behind undistinguished links. Look at the current rendering for the documentation for net/http, the core HTTP package: https://pkg.go.dev/net/http https://pkg.go.dev/net/http Your challenge is to scroll through the package with the scrollbar, looking for the Examples. Of course, if enough people try this, some will find them quickly. Someone will simply jerk their mouse and scroll right to it in a quarter of a second, of course. But in general, they're not easy to find, even when I'm telling you to look for them. If you don't even know they are there they are super easy to miss. The main listing for the examples is between the Index and the Constants. In the left section breakdown, they don't get their own top-level section but are instead by default buried unexpanded below Index, where I would personally assert they don't belong. Even if you scroll to the documentation for a specific function that includes an example, such as Hijacker: https://pkg.go.dev/net/http#Hijacker https://pkg.go.dev/net/http#Hijacker , I think it's very easy to be scanning through and miss the little Example link in all the noise. And again, in this context I'm calling your attention to it; in normal circumstances I think link blindness kicks in and people can read these docs for years without catching them. And then of course even if you do catch them it's easy to come away thinking it must be something special the standard library can do but you can't, because that is a Go thing, and so few 3rd party packages avail themselves of this. But you can easily do them yourself. It's little more than a slightly specially-formatted test function.

arp242 3y ago
Well, it doesn't really matter – my main complaint was that the title was editorialized in a way that I personally wouldn't appreciate for my own article, but now the article title changed and the submitter may be the article author (not entirely clear). I would have deleted my previous post if I could.
3y ago