Jesse Duffield
jesseduffield.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2020
Jesse Duffield, creator of Lazygit, writes about Go's shortcomings, code design, testing, and building and maintaining open source tools.
What HN saysHN commenters praise Lazygit's design and link his Go error-handling critique, which others share. The author also replies to rebuttals in comment threads.
22HN people shared it
6linked it in comments
46stories submitted
908story points
3 months agolast shared
2020people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Go’ing Insane: Endless Error Handling3 people · 149 points · first shared 2021 · 211 comments on HN
- 2Array Functions and the Rule of Least Power3 people · 23 points · first shared 2020 · 2 comments on HN
- 3Code Smell of the Day: Type Keys2 people · 93 points · first shared 2021 · 74 comments on HN
- 4Still no consensus on testing private methods2 people · 69 points · first shared 2022 · 91 comments on HN
- 51M Lazygit downloads, one embarrassment at a time2 people · 69 points · first shared 2025 · 12 comments on HN
- 6If you're out of ideas, build Memeware (2024)2 people · 5 points · first shared 2024 · 1 comments on HN
- 7Lazygit creator interviews DHH (creator of Rails)2 people · 3 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
- 8Negative-Interest Tech Debt2 people · 3 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 9Lazygit Turns 5: Musings on Git, TUIs, and Open Source2 people · 1 points · first shared 2023 · discussion on HN
- 10Beginner's Guide to Abstraction1 people · 243 points · first shared 2020 · 79 comments on HN
- 11Beyond coupling and cohesion: strategies for un-fucking yourself1 people · 108 points · first shared 2021 · 12 comments on HN
- 12Four approaches to implicit state in compound components, ranked1 people · 42 points · first shared 2021 · 21 comments on HN
- 13Can't Be Fucked: Underrated Cause of Tech Debt1 people · 19 points · first shared 2023 · 1 comments on HN
- 14I want my AI to get mad1 people · 18 points · first shared 2025 · 29 comments on HN
- 15My notes from deciding against AWS Lambda1 people · 13 points · first shared 2024 · 7 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
brandon_bot · 2025-11-11
I was first convinced to try Lazygit after reading https://jesseduffield.com/Lazygit-5-Years-On/#weighing-in-on-the-cli-u… (written by Lazygit's creator).
Haven't regretted it at all; the tool is a pleasure to use due to its great design decisions. Contributing back to the codebase is also quite straightforward.
jesseduffield · 2022-12-16
Author of the post here: I've written a follow-up that addresses some of the rebuttals made in these comments: https://jesseduffield.com/Unless-Responses/
If I've neglected to address your specific criticism I'm happy to do so here
shlip · 2022-11-08
Not a GUI, but a nice TUI : https://github.com/jesseduffield/lazygit
Some videos show the workflow here : https://jesseduffield.com/15-Lazygit-Features/
apazzolini · 2022-03-15
Here's a blog series that you'll likely find enlightening: https://jesseduffield.com/Gos-Shortcomings-1/
lenkite · 2021-10-04
The extraordinarily repetitive error handling in Go drives me batty and I am thankfully not the only one who feels this way
Part One: Endless Error Handling
https://jesseduffield.com/Gos-Shortcomings-1/
That blog also covers a lot of Go's wonderful defects advertised as 'features'.
ctvo · 2021-09-14
Isn’t there a Rob Pike quote for these?
"Who cares? Shut up"
It’s in the context of concerns from newer developers who don’t focus on what’s important.
This is the same blog that gave us code smells, abstract more to hide it (https://jesseduffield.com/Type-Keys-Revisited) -- only to point out the possibly differing perspectives on software development.
There’s a philosophy to the language that’s very clearly defined. You have many options these days on what you write in. You’re not changing how Go does error handling because you think it’s needlessly verbose.