Message-Id: <199908250601.CAA24289@delorie.com>
From: "Dan Gold" <TedMat AT CoastNet DOT com>
To: <djgpp AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Re: Do Error Messages Really Help?
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 06:48:49 -0700
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Priority: 3
X-Mailer: Microsoft Internet Mail 4.70.1155
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com

Don't make judgements man, I read the freaking documentation for everything
I use and need to know.  I ask questions for things I don't think were
clear enough for me to understand.  I made the comment out of seeing alot
of messages comming to this newgroup with questions about what their
compiler means when it gives an error message.  You don't have to resent
the fact that since you read the documentation, everyone else is not worthy
of getting the information from a less self endulging basis.  Another
thing, this wasn't about reading documentation is was about getting it
quickly, some hot text that indexes to a point in documentation is much
nicer than wading through a large document.  Some people do not read
documentation because they don't want to go looking for the answer, not
because they don't want to read it.

From ((--DAN GOLD--))

----------
> From: Weiqi Gao <weiqigao AT a DOT crl DOT com>
> To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
> Subject: Re: Do Error Messages Really Help?
> Date: Tuesday, August 24, 1999 5:17 PM
> 
> Martin Peach wrote:
> > 
> > It sure would be useful to have stuff like ENOENT written out in long,
I
> > keep trying to guess what it might possibly stand for.
> > "Error no Entry"? "Eno ain't here?" "Exit not Entrance?"  Surely there
is
> > not a DOS-like (8.3) limit on symbolic names?
> 
> That's where the documentation comes in.  Ever heard of it? the
> documentation?  Thoese *d.zip archives?  Those are meant to be read by
> the programmer.
> 
> Not everything can be explained in an intuitive way.  No matter how hard
> you try, their is always someone who don't understand.  It is not the
> compiler's job to teach.  To compiler compiles programs written by
> programmers.  And the programmer is assumed to have some level of
> understanding of how it works, including the meaning of ENOENT.
> 
> The GNU C library documentation is actually quite a pleasant read.  The
> edition that I have has a section that explains all the error codes, up
> to "EIOIO -- Go home and have a glass of dairy-fresh milk."
> 
> --
> Weiqi Gao
> weiqigao AT a DOT crl DOT com