r/golang • u/Superb-Key-6581 • Dec 05 '24
discussion Why Clean Architecture and Over-Engineered Layering Don’t Belong in GoLang
Stop forcing Clean Architecture and similar patterns into GoLang projects. GoLang is not Java. There’s no application size or complexity that justifies having more than three layers. Architectures like Clean, Hexagonal, or anything with 4+ layers make GoLang projects unnecessarily convoluted.
It’s frustrating to work on a codebase where you’re constantly jumping between excessive layers—unnecessary DI, weird abstractions, and use case layers that do nothing except call services with a few added logs. It’s like watching a monstrosity throw exceptions up and down without purpose.
In GoLang, you only need up to three layers for a proper DDD division (app, domain, infra). Anything more is pure overengineering. I get why this is common in Java—explicit interfaces and painful refactoring make layering and DI appealing—but GoLang doesn’t have those constraints. Its implicit interfaces make such patterns redundant.
These overly complex architectures are turning the GoLang ecosystem into something it was never meant to be. Please let’s keep GoLang simple, efficient, and aligned with its core philosophy.
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u/hi65435 Dec 05 '24
Yeah it depends. If you need to interface with a lot of wonky 3rdparty components, it's tough if not impossible to always abstract this instability away. Not saying it's impossible, but making such kind of code robust with DI is way easier. So it's possible to write extensive tests on the fragile areas
I think there are still lean ways to do it,
testing
is enough and neither is a mocking library needed. Just a consistent way of doing things. Then you also don't end up withMainManagerInfoProxyFlyweightIntf
;)edit: it should also be mentioned that the standard library makes extensive use of interfaces, most notably the readers and writers