Common Pitfalls and Best Practices in Go

Problems are typically richer than our preconceived notions about how to solve them. We can learn this the hard way, by failing and then failing again but failing better. But there are often shortcuts to be found if you are willing to spend more time mapping the landscape.

A classic problem in computer science is hill climbing. Imagine you are dropped at a random spot on a hilly terrain, where you can only see a few feet in each direction (assume it’s foggy or something). The goal is to get to the highest hill.

Best practices are rarely the best — they're mostly just cargo cult common practices.

And as more people adopt them, the more mediocre they become.

The best is usually what most people aren't willing to do.

“ I wanted to pass on another nugget I’ve learned about how to approach and define problems: working backwards. I’ve found this to be useful in both technical and business situations and I use it all the time.

Basically, start with the end result you want, and figure out how to get there from here. If you can’t define the desired outcome, then ste

... See more

Julia Evans once said "behind every best practice is a horror story." If you don't understand a Best Practice, look for the horror story that inspired it. It might make the best practice make sense. It might turn out to be something that's completely irrelevant to you, and then you can feel comfortable doing a different practice instead.

The best way I’ve found to think about this problem is with the game of paintball. You start off with a purpose, maybe it’s to capture the flag in a building. The next step is to understand the landscape and the obstacles in your path. Naturally, a bunch of newbies will tend to charge out onto the field of battle without understanding their landsca... See more