--- title: ok Considered Harmful | daily.dev description: The post discusses the convention of naming boolean existence variables in Go as 'ok', and argues that it is harmful and should be replaced with a more... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/ok-considered-harmful-sg0zhkc4o twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: ok Considered Harmful | daily.dev og:description: The post discusses the convention of naming boolean existence variables in Go as 'ok', and argues that it is harmful and should be replaced with a more... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/ok-considered-harmful-sg0zhkc4o og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/Sg0zHKC4o.png og:image:alt: ok Considered Harmful og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # ok Considered Harmful **[Lobsters](https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters)** · 10 min read · 5 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary The post discusses the convention of naming boolean existence variables in Go as 'ok', and argues that it is harmful and should be replaced with a more descriptive convention such as 'exists'. It provides examples and benefits of using the new convention. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@mykytanikitenko42** · 0 upvotes > ah, unfortunately, variable scoping sucks in go, you run out of identifiers very quickly, especially on package level ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Don’t just attend KubeCon \+ CloudNativeCon, Merge Forward your experience\!](https://daily.dev/posts/don-t-just-attend-kubecon-cloudnativecon-merge-forward-your-experience--l0rpp73x8) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Announcing H2 2026 KCDs](https://daily.dev/posts/announcing-h2-2026-kcds-m96goajm1) · CNCF · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Two months of Open Community Groups](https://daily.dev/posts/two-months-of-open-community-groups-asf52zhbs) · CNCF · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#golang](https://daily.dev/tags/golang) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/ok-considered-harmful-sg0zhkc4o) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"ok Considered Harmful","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/ok-considered-harmful-sg0zhkc4o","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ok-considered-harmful-sg0zhkc4o"},"datePublished":"2024-05-15T09:45:54.872Z","dateModified":"2024-05-15T09:45:52.658Z","description":"The post discusses the convention of naming boolean existence variables in Go as 'ok', and argues that it is harmful and should be replaced with a more...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/7e68b8ff2a6ac0a3a6bba43f69a37f9b?_a=AQAEuiZ","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/7e68b8ff2a6ac0a3a6bba43f69a37f9b?_a=AQAEuiZ","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Lobsters","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Lobsters","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--tl8v_Fku--/f_auto,t_logo/v1698841318/logos/lobste.jpg","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters"},"commentCount":1,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/ok-considered-harmful-sg0zhkc4o","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":5},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}],"keywords":"golang","timeRequired":"PT10M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Lobsters","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/lobsters"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"ok Considered Harmful"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/ok-considered-harmful-sg0zhkc4o","comment":[{"@type":"Comment","text":"ah, unfortunately, variable scoping sucks in go, you run out of identifiers very quickly, especially on package level","datePublished":"2024-06-07T17:50:33.881Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/Sg0zHKC4o#c-wf1ifQQgt","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Mykyta Nikitenko","url":"https://daily.dev/mykytanikitenko42","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/AAcHTtfurSXqjGczJrC4WFT2LrMQYjGe-Qrau5HTeaP1=s96-c"}}]} ```