7 ms·

This makes no sense to me. Generally speaking an application should return an error message or code when something goes wrong, not a potentially valid piece of

This makes no sense to me. Generally speaking an application should return an error message or code when something goes wrong, not a potentially valid piece of data. That an entire industry would adopt this kind of workaround for poor software engineering is astonishing.

sk0g 3y ago
My biggest qualm with Go is exactly this. Especially when deserialising data, data that wasn't sent vs empty/default data can be quite different things, yet you have to be very wary of the values you are processing. Ints default to 0, bools to false... Fuck.
- tgv 3y ago
  Then don't use json.Decoder, or use pointers in your structs.
  - smabie 3y ago
    Or better solution, don't use Go.
    - tgv 3y ago
      Sure, do everything in JS. So much easier.
      - xigoi 3y ago
        Ah yes, Go and JavaScript, the only two programming languages.
        tgv 3y ago
        No, but there are no other languages applicable in this context, really. You need a (de)serializer in each and every one of them, so you have to find some library, and that also includes Go. The easy choice in Go is the default one (simply called json), but there are quite a few alternative (de)serializers and validators. The GP just didn't look for them.
LorenPechtel 3y ago
The problem comes from databases. Sometimes you simply have no source for the data. (Say, your phone with GPS turned off and now towers around.)
- tgflynn 3y ago
  That's what NULL (or it's various equivalents) is for.
lmc 3y ago
Welcome to GIS :D Seriously, it's a domain with huge under-the-surface complexity (no pun intended)[1], and most of the early efforts were spent in dealing with the maths and science, rather than software engineering. Things are getting better though. [1] here is a good jumping off point (imagine the technical debt this might lead to): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_reference_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_reference_system
secretsatan 3y ago
I’m guilty of sending results to null island for various reasons and it can be confusing, but to give the user simply an error would be worse, as they have nothing rather than something. If for some reason we can’t get a geolocation, for various reasons, even a user simply denying access to gps, we can still deliver meaningful results as while the data is improperly located, it still has meaningful coordinates relative to itself and can be transformed later.
- tgflynn 3y ago
  If you can handle an error and still return meaningful data that's fine, but returning the coordinates 0,0 to the user because GPS isn't working is far worse than giving them an error message. At that point you're essentially lying to them.
  - secretsatan 3y ago
    You need an origin, and tbh, there’s things that could be worse, somethings that looks close to what you expect, but actually subtly wrong, which is something we deal with on pretty much a daily basis. At least most of our customers are very unlikely to be doing anything at null island and the problem is obvious. To a certain extent, all gps data is lying to you, it’s about figuring out how much it’s lying to you, sticking something at 0,0 is fairly tame and much easier to detect than something being out by 5cm We do indicate to the user in the ui if no gps signal is available for example, or it’s low quality, but sometimes we get things like the system reporting it’s current location as the estimated location of the last wifi connection. We also might start something and have no gps, but acquire it later, could be seconds, minutes or never, the accuracy can increase and decrease, we don’t force the user to give up, we record what we can. we still face limitations from software further down the chain that require coordinates as inputs.
NotYourLawyer 3y ago
Have you ever seen software that correctly deals with error conditions in all circumstances? I sure haven’t.
- tgflynn 3y ago
  There's a huge difference between recognizing that most software will have some bugs and creating a system that's so broken by design that you have to invent a fictitious island to work around it.
  - NotYourLawyer 3y ago
    What part of the design is broken? What design? This looks to me like a bunch of individually broken pieces of software that have a common failure mode.

sk0g 3y ago

My biggest qualm with Go is exactly this. Especially when deserialising data, data that wasn't sent vs empty/default data can be quite different things, yet you have to be very wary of the values you are processing. Ints default to 0, bools to false... Fuck.

tgv 3y ago
Then don't use json.Decoder, or use pointers in your structs.
- smabie 3y ago
  Or better solution, don't use Go.
  - tgv 3y ago
    Sure, do everything in JS. So much easier.
    - xigoi 3y ago
      Ah yes, Go and JavaScript, the only two programming languages.
      - tgv 3y ago
        No, but there are no other languages applicable in this context, really. You need a (de)serializer in each and every one of them, so you have to find some library, and that also includes Go. The easy choice in Go is the default one (simply called json), but there are quite a few alternative (de)serializers and validators. The GP just didn't look for them.

LorenPechtel 3y ago

The problem comes from databases. Sometimes you simply have no source for the data. (Say, your phone with GPS turned off and now towers around.)

tgflynn 3y ago
That's what NULL (or it's various equivalents) is for.

lmc 3y ago

Welcome to GIS :D Seriously, it's a domain with huge under-the-surface complexity (no pun intended)[1], and most of the early efforts were spent in dealing with the maths and science, rather than software engineering. Things are getting better though. [1] here is a good jumping off point (imagine the technical debt this might lead to): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_reference_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial_reference_system

secretsatan 3y ago

I’m guilty of sending results to null island for various reasons and it can be confusing, but to give the user simply an error would be worse, as they have nothing rather than something. If for some reason we can’t get a geolocation, for various reasons, even a user simply denying access to gps, we can still deliver meaningful results as while the data is improperly located, it still has meaningful coordinates relative to itself and can be transformed later.

tgflynn 3y ago
If you can handle an error and still return meaningful data that's fine, but returning the coordinates 0,0 to the user because GPS isn't working is far worse than giving them an error message. At that point you're essentially lying to them.
- secretsatan 3y ago
  You need an origin, and tbh, there’s things that could be worse, somethings that looks close to what you expect, but actually subtly wrong, which is something we deal with on pretty much a daily basis. At least most of our customers are very unlikely to be doing anything at null island and the problem is obvious. To a certain extent, all gps data is lying to you, it’s about figuring out how much it’s lying to you, sticking something at 0,0 is fairly tame and much easier to detect than something being out by 5cm We do indicate to the user in the ui if no gps signal is available for example, or it’s low quality, but sometimes we get things like the system reporting it’s current location as the estimated location of the last wifi connection. We also might start something and have no gps, but acquire it later, could be seconds, minutes or never, the accuracy can increase and decrease, we don’t force the user to give up, we record what we can. we still face limitations from software further down the chain that require coordinates as inputs.

NotYourLawyer 3y ago

Have you ever seen software that correctly deals with error conditions in all circumstances? I sure haven’t.

tgflynn 3y ago
There's a huge difference between recognizing that most software will have some bugs and creating a system that's so broken by design that you have to invent a fictitious island to work around it.
- NotYourLawyer 3y ago
  What part of the design is broken? What design? This looks to me like a bunch of individually broken pieces of software that have a common failure mode.