from Hacker News

Unhelpful abstractions

by spacey on 2/6/16, 8:56 AM with 5 comments

• by mmarx on 2/7/16, 2:22 PM

  > Specifically, now every caller to this function has to pass in a mode value, even if the file exists, even if they don’t really care and are happy with a default file mode.

  Wouldn't this be solved by allowing for optional arguments (which go doesn't seem to support)? Also, why not just _explicitly_ set the file mode, even if the file still exists (as otherwise it would fail anyways)?

• by junke on 2/7/16, 3:40 PM

  > Sometimes it’s better to be explicit than abstract.

  This is a false dichotomy: after all, "open" is explicit and abstract (w.r.t. actual file systems).

  The original article from Metz was interesting, but the example here is disappointing. The code was apparently used only once: why generalize?

  And if you want to generalize, why not make use of two functions: a new one which implements "touch", and the existing os.Chmod?