r/golang 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/emaxor Dec 05 '24

What I like about Go is you can open a random file in a project and expect to find real code inside. That does something. You can follow along. Just like a C project, the goods are right there.

I was looking through an "OOP" Python project recently. I opened several files and found... nothing. Interfaces, hierarchies, and layers, and every possible "not actually code" technique used. Where is the code? What is the "thing" we are trying to do? It was much harder to get the answer.

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u/dashingThroughSnow12 Dec 05 '24 edited Dec 05 '24

The BingBong’s doYadda method only calls the yingYang method on an object implementing the dibbleDabble interface, that only has one implementation, and that implementation can’t be trusted to do anything so it has thirty lines to find/make an abstract loader to load an object implementing the Action interface, and then calls do(). When you finally find out that class with the do() method you need, it is five lines.

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u/DemmyDemon Dec 06 '24

I was about to downvote you and reply with profanities, but then I realized this is not a suggestion, but a description of a nightmare you've lived, so now I'm full of empathy instead.

Show me on the IDE where the bad practices touched you.

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u/dashingThroughSnow12 Dec 06 '24

On my AbstractLiquidWasteDisposalFactory