Comment by Someone
1 day ago
> I love the error handling
Even if you prefer manually checking for errors after every call that might fail, I fail to see how one can love go’s verbosity. Compare go’s
foo, err := bar()
if err != nil {
return ERR;
}
with something like (hypothetical)
foo := bar() ||| return ERR;
where the compiler, seeing that bar returns an Either<int,err> can enforce the presence of the ||| clause or, alternatively, require later code to check for errors if the ||| clause isn’t present. I think that’s both more robust (prevents one from forgetting to check for errors) and shorter (allowing for showing a lot more code on a screen or page)
I think the examples are both bad along different axis. One occupies more lines, the other results in _more_ and uglier syntax. They’re both bad. So the question is which axis is worse.
While the first occupies more lines I suspect I’d spend less time spotting it in the code. The physical shape of the expression is something my brain is used to seeing after 40 years of programming. Even when code grows more complex.
The second is OK when it stands alone, but I am not so certain it would be as easy to spot in more complex surroundings. Even on a single line, there is something a bit ugly about the code. Even before we get to the desperate triple-pipe. That kind of reminds me of the desperate attempts at repairing JS after they realized its equality semantics were shot. Just heap more characters on it.
The thing is: it is actually very hard to judge how ergonomic a language is by just looking at it. You have to use it and you have to use it enough to realize where the paint points really are. I’ve read through a lot of the responses in this discussion and I’ll be honest: I think a lot of people who criticize other languages (be they Rust, C, Go or whatever) aren’t very fluent in them. It takes a couple of years to develop fluency.
There are so many proposals for improving errors, even half implemented ones that are dropped. I even stopped checking pros and cons after a few. As ultimately everything got rejected and the message is that you have to live with verbose checking with llms now.