The Day the Linter Broke My Code

Posted4 months agoActive4 months ago

eik

25 points

6 comments

blog.fillmore-labs.comTechstory

calmmixed

Debate

40/100

Error HandlingGo ProgrammingLinting

Key topics

Error Handling

Go Programming

Linting

The post discusses how a linter broke the author's code by warning about a comparison within an `Is` method, sparking a discussion on error handling and linting in Go.

Snapshot generated from the HN discussion

Discussion Activity

Light discussion

First comment

N/A

Peak period

72-84h

Avg / period

1.5

Key moments

01Story posted
Sep 15, 2025 at 7:28 AM EDT
4 months ago
Step 01
02First comment
Sep 15, 2025 at 7:28 AM EDT
0s after posting
Step 02
03Peak activity
2 comments in 72-84h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03
04Latest activity
Sep 19, 2025 at 2:12 PM EDT
4 months ago
Step 04

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Discussion (6 comments)

Showing 6 comments

ecnahc515

4 months ago

1 reply

If the the OP is the author, did consider filing a bug with errcheck? It should be possible for errcheck to check if the comparison is being done within an `Is(err error) bool` method and skip the warning in that case, or even better: it could check if your using `errors.Is` within an `Is` method and warn in that case!

eikAuthor

4 months ago

1 reply

The linter in the post is `err113`. `errortype` does already warn:

https://github.com/fillmore-labs/errortype#errortype

ecnahc515

4 months ago

Ah right, wrong linter. Thanks for confirming!

cronelius

4 months ago

1 reply

Isn't this what Unwrap() is for? errors.Is calls Unwrap if it's available and then compares _that_ error.

eikAuthor

4 months ago

Yes, but “an Is method should only shallowly compare err and the target and not call Unwrap on either”:

https://pkg.go.dev/errors#Is

eikAuthor

4 months ago

Having looked at the problems that can arise with errors.As:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44959638

Let's now look at how errors.Is can introduce subtle bugs that can affect the reliability of error checking, especially when trying to determine the root cause of an error.

How one letter can make such a difference…

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ID: 45248427Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 5:42:25 PM

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