3 ms·
Strong agree. One of the things that turned me off of Elm, which is famous for having useful error messages, is the cutesy anthropomorphic style they are writte
by jasperry 6y ago
Strong agree. One of the things that turned me off of Elm, which is famous for having useful error messages, is the cutesy anthropomorphic style they are written in.
More thorough error messages can be good, but they need to be well formatted to help people's eyes lock on to the core message; then they can read more if they need to.
One thing I like about Python's error messages is that, even though you can get a long trace, the most specific/relevant information is usually at the bottom, right next to your prompt. I tell me students, "read your Python error messages from the bottom up."
- Kwpolska 6y agoThe bottom-up nature of Python’s exceptions is also handly if you’re running a Python thing in a terminal, or are running `tail -f` on its logs. Java, on the other hand, puts the important bits at the top, so if your tracebacks are long and your screen isn’t too tall, you’re forced to scroll up.