Error handling patterns

The idiom you'll type a thousand times

Because errors are values, handling them is just an if. The Go program is dotted with this exact block:

result, err := doSomething()
if err != nil {
    return result, err
}

It looks repetitive, and it is — deliberately. Every failure is visible at the point it happens; nothing is hidden in an invisible throw. Reading a Go function top to bottom, you see every place it can bail out. That explicitness is the trade Go makes on purpose.