alt Hacker NewsThe unusual case does look unusual. == and != are visually very different.
I suspect the real problem here is that the parent commenter forgot (read: purposefully avoided) to write tests and is blaming the tools to drown his sorrow.
The unusual case does look unusual. == and != are visually very different.
I suspect the real problem here is that the parent commenter forgot (read: purposefully avoided) to write tests and is blaming the tools to drown his sorrow.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44172285
> [I] was apparently so desensitized to the latter construct that it actually took me ages to debug, because my brain simply did not consider that `if err != nil` was not supposed to be there.
Clearly not different enough.
Tests are just one tool among many that we use to build and evaluate mental models of behaviour. It's equally possible that the parent commenter noticed unusual behaviour _via_ their tests, and took "ages to debug" precisely _because_ they were misreading the code while trying to understand _why_ the tests were failing. A hypothetical syntax highlighter that flagged up to them "hey, you're doing something unusual here - is that intended?" would have helped them in debugging _alongside_ tests.