3 ms·

It's a problem for values of all types, which is why exceptions are usually handled specially in other languages. I get that it seems impure, but everything you

It's a problem for values of all types, which is why exceptions are usually handled specially in other languages. I get that it seems impure, but everything you call has some way to fail <1% of the time that you probably want to handle very differently from any other outcome. It's sensible for a language to force you to either designate a different code path for that or let it bubble up (edit: which, to clarify, Golang does not enforce with error return types, which is what the other person dislikes about it).

randomdata 2y ago
I've read a lot of code in my life. I see that exception handlers are sometimes used to carry errors, virtually always exceptions, but almost never anything else. Who is it that you are think are passing around email addresses and geocooreinates using exception handlers? But even assuming it is done sometimes, is the developer going to actually handle it? I don't know how many times I've come across "catch" blocks that are empty or something equally inappropriate. Nothing was gained. It turns out that programmers will still forget no matter how hard you try to hold their hand. I'm not sure there is any other solution than to test it, and once you get into testing, entire blocks of logic missing are going to stick out like a sore thumb. Forgetting an entire branch is not exactly a subtle bug. At that point it really doesn't matter what language constructs you do or don't have available.
- shepherdjerred 2y ago
  > I don't know how many times I've come across "catch" blocks that are empty or something equally inappropriate. Nothing was gained. It turns out that programmers will still forget no matter how hard you try to hold their hand. You are right, but the difference is that the programmer is making the choice to ignore that error versus accidentally ignoring the error.
  - randomdata 2y ago
    There was no indication that it was an active choice. I'm speaking to where it was clearly incorrect behaviour, not where one honestly wanted to ignore the condition. I'm assuming these programmers would write out the boilerplate (perhaps even automatically by some IDE feature) and then forgot to return to it to fill in the logic. And fair enough. It would be just as easy to forget to do that as it would be to forget to handle errors in any other language. There is no silver bullet here.
    - hot_gril 2y ago
      Adding a try{...} with an empty catch{} takes a lot more effort than simply forgetting to do something with an error return value.

randomdata 2y ago

I've read a lot of code in my life. I see that exception handlers are sometimes used to carry errors, virtually always exceptions, but almost never anything else. Who is it that you are think are passing around email addresses and geocooreinates using exception handlers? But even assuming it is done sometimes, is the developer going to actually handle it? I don't know how many times I've come across "catch" blocks that are empty or something equally inappropriate. Nothing was gained. It turns out that programmers will still forget no matter how hard you try to hold their hand. I'm not sure there is any other solution than to test it, and once you get into testing, entire blocks of logic missing are going to stick out like a sore thumb. Forgetting an entire branch is not exactly a subtle bug. At that point it really doesn't matter what language constructs you do or don't have available.

shepherdjerred 2y ago
> I don't know how many times I've come across "catch" blocks that are empty or something equally inappropriate. Nothing was gained. It turns out that programmers will still forget no matter how hard you try to hold their hand. You are right, but the difference is that the programmer is making the choice to ignore that error versus accidentally ignoring the error.
- randomdata 2y ago
  There was no indication that it was an active choice. I'm speaking to where it was clearly incorrect behaviour, not where one honestly wanted to ignore the condition. I'm assuming these programmers would write out the boilerplate (perhaps even automatically by some IDE feature) and then forgot to return to it to fill in the logic. And fair enough. It would be just as easy to forget to do that as it would be to forget to handle errors in any other language. There is no silver bullet here.
  - hot_gril 2y ago
    Adding a try{...} with an empty catch{} takes a lot more effort than simply forgetting to do something with an error return value.