Hacker News Reader

Comment by 2trill2spill | Hacker News Reader

Apparently too lazy to set an environment variable. I found GOPATH annoying but not using Golang simply for that seems absurd to me.

View on HN

You see, GOPATH crossed a line. Go is opinionated, which is fine, but with GOPATH its opinions extended beyond my Go work and into the rest of my system. As a naive new Go user, I was prepared to accept their opinions on faith - but only within their domain. I already have opinions about how to use my computer. I knew Go was cool, but it could be the second coming of Christ, and so long as it was annoying to use and didn’t integrate with my workflow, I (rightfully) wouldn’t care.

That's not the point: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18178987

And just what point is that? The article states that "You see, GOPATH crossed a line. " Doesn't explain what that line is and then goes on to say that Golang is an awesome and simple language.

He says it in the next sentence.

"...but with GOPATH its opinions extended beyond my Go work and into the rest of my system. [...] I already have opinions about how to use my computer."

Not sure I agree with that statement. Yes Golang has an opinion on where it wants you to keep your go code but it dosen't effect the rest of your system, just your go work.

Where I want to keep my code is not one of the things I grant the language the right to dictate - even if the code is written in that language.

Sure, but there are 100 other languages out there that do the same thing as Go but don't have an opinion about the organization of my system. I'd rather just use one of those, and really I don't think I'm missing out on much by not using Go.

Toggling GOPATH between projects is a huge pain, it's not as simple as set it once and forget it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com