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A comment on I Love Go; I Hate Go. Parent comment

Re:I Love Go; I Hate Go by tptacek on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @01:08PM (#12211394)
The unused variables are the things that can really cause bugs in your code. It's annoying, and I share your annoyance, but I have also sighed to myself and said "shit, I'm glad Go caught that" after noticing really bad bugs that the error flagged.
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Re:I Love Go; I Hate Go by junke on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @01:32PM (#12211554)
That's why unused variables should be reported.

What people are arguing about is errors vs. warnings.

> things that can really cause bugs

"can" means that they don't always cause bugs: other compilers treat such uncertainties as warnings because the human looking at the screen is the one who is in charge.

Go allows you to compile code which does not respect "go fmt", why? aren't you afraid of committing working code that does not abide to the proper style? Improper formatting can lead to confusion, bugs and maintenance problems too, after all.

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Re:I Love Go; I Hate Go by tptacek on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @04:09PM (#12212953)
As someone else pointed across the thread, the error eliminates these bugs, not only in your code but, effectively, in all the libraries you import. It takes effort to retain those bugs.

That has significant value, and is why I've conclude Go's choice here was the right one, despite the annoyances it causes.

I like gofmt, but I don't really care whether the compiler enforces it. It's unlikely to catch bugs.

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Re:I Love Go; I Hate Go by zzzcpan on Tuesday August 02, 2016 @04:16PM (#12213018)
Actually, that's a huge speculation. Breaking someone's train of thought with an error that needs fixing right that second could just as well cause some bugs.
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Re:I Love Go; I Hate Go by junke on Wednesday August 03, 2016 @03:15PM (#12220656)
And so the compiler, who has no way to make informed decisions, is there to tell you which stylistic issues is more likely to introduce bugs or not, while being needlessly stubborn.

A sufficiently bureaucratic compiler.

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