On Tuesday, April 4, 2017 at 2:34:29 AM UTC-4, Axel Wagner wrote: > > On Tue, Apr 4, 2017 at 12:38 AM, Joubin Houshyar <jhou...@gmail.com > <javascript:>> wrote: >> >> Well, you've got bigger fish to fry here in your example above than >> worrying about call site snafus: you should be closing that opened file in >> the error case. Right? >> > > I don't think so. First, from a "general go API hygiene" position, it > doesn't make sense to require to do *anything* to a returned value if a > non-nil error is returned. And second, if open(2) fails, there won't even > be anything returned that could be closed. > > It seems to me neither Dave's (roughly: all bets are off if function >> returns error) nor Ian's (roughly: be extra hygienic) replies has satisfied >> you. >> > > I don't know how you would come to that conclusion. Dave's messages didn't > satisfy me, because they did not actually have anything to do with the > question. Ian's reply did. He asked a follow-up question though, which I > answered. > > But also, I wasn't asking for a question with an authoritative answer. I > was soliciting opinions. That kind of thing doesn't usually end once > someone gave theirs. And I find all the other (later) replies very useful. > > >> And as far as the being "hurtful" to users of your functions, if they are >> ignoring errors, and ignoring documentation, then they fully deserve >> spending a few extra cycles banging their heads against the wall. It a >> lesson worth learning. >> > > This is an incredibly weird position to me. The reasons for not checking > an error might range from "they don't have the experience/knowledge" to > "they weren't careful enough at that time" and considering either to be > deserving of punishment seems very arrogant to me. It seems to say that you > assume both you always were an expert programmer and you never make any > mistakes. >
Punishment is something that is meted out. Self inflicted pain is not a form of punishment. Learning any craft entails making mistakes and learning from those mistakes. For example, there is not a conspiracy of nail and hammer makers to "punish" novice carpenters who miss the nail and hit their fingers with the hammer. It is just part of the learning process. > > Making people's life easier when they made a mistake - even if it's their > fault - is a net positive; you lose nothing and their life gets easier. > In this context, making people's life easier is adhering to language conventions, and providing correct documentation and bug free implementations. (p.s. I did not appreciate the pejorative terms in your reply. You may wish to review this document: https://golang.org/conduct) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "golang-nuts" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to golang-nuts+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
