4 ms·
"How to read an error message." This would help countless people new to development. Lots of systems (I'm looking at you, Java) throw up vast splats of traceba
by OliverJones 5y ago
"How to read an error message."
This would help countless people new to development. Lots of systems (I'm looking at you, Java) throw up vast splats of tracebacks. Others chunder out great chunks of poorly digested code. Sometimes daunting even for experienced people.
An article with basic advice about looking for the one or two useful lines in error messages would be great.
- BossingAround 5y agoMy experience is that you learn reading Java stack traces by reading Java stack traces. There's nothing to it other than the initial stress of wall of text. Not sure about other languages though.
- mkl 5y agoIn my experience (teaching university students), few of the people who need such an article most would read it, or even go looking for it. Maybe some experienced people might, but most of those will figure it out for themselves. I think most beginner programmers treat every error message as simply "you screwed up", and reading the error message and gleaning useful information from it doesn't occur to them as a possibility. That knowledge can come from it being explained like you suggest (but in person with their actual problem is better), or from them sitting down and puzzling it out. If you haven't been through this though, and don't know what kind of information is available in error messages, you won't go looking for an explanation of how to find it.