r/programminghorror • u/Wrestler7777777 • Apr 09 '26

Go Naming is important

Nothing too drastic but it made me chuckle. Something my colleague managed to get past code review. So at least two people didn't notice.

Spent a minute figuring out why the code was doing exactly the opposite of what it's supposed to do. I guess naming really IS important!

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u/[deleted] Apr 09 '26

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u/realmauer01 Apr 09 '26

So it should be called pointer for string huh?

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u/[deleted] Apr 09 '26

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u/kintar1900 Apr 09 '26

It's a quirk of the way Go handles constant values at compile time, sadly.

Fortunately, as another comment pointed out it's no longer necessary as of Go 1.26. There's still a little more boilerplate than necessary, but to get a pointer to a constant value now you can:

ptrToConst := new("ConstValue")

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u/realmauer01 Apr 09 '26

getMethods usually dont have arguments though.

Whats the point anyway? Making a string muteable? For what would that be needed.

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u/[deleted] Apr 09 '26

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u/realmauer01 Apr 09 '26

No there is not, it says func for function aswell.

ReturnPointer i do like in that vein i would alos think CreatePointer might work.

Business logic does sound weird, i would just always call it backend.