1. Forum
  2. NIXNet
  3. NIX LINUX

  • Re: Things that piss you off...

    From Peter London@86:546/20 to All on Sun Aug 2 03:15:02 2026

    I have not been frustrated lately, knock-on-wood, by linux specifically
    but have run into some issues where the error message from software in general has been vague. Think "file not found" but no indication as to *which* file isn't found. :( In most languages I am familiar with,
    that is one that is pretty easy to code for and give a proper
    error message.

    Yeah, we who do open source are not always great at writing proper error messages. It's like, "naaaah I'll be fine, I'll just run it through strace
    or gdb if it complains". We can do better and we should :D. (It's not
    really those extra 2 lines of code that provide us the dopamine though, I
    have to admit...)

    :)

    Cheers

    Peter



    --- SklaffKOM v1.33rc1
    * Origin: Twilight Node, Solvesborg, Sweden (86:546/20)
  • From Sean Dennis@86:100/1 to Peter London on Fri Aug 7 20:41:40 2026
    Hello Peter,

    02 Aug 26 03:15, you wrote to All:

    Yeah, we who do open source are not always great at writing proper
    error messages. It's like, "naaaah I'll be fine, I'll just run it
    through strace or gdb if it complains". We can do better and we should
    :D. (It's not really those extra 2 lines of code that provide us the dopamine though, I have to admit...)

    My BBS doors and utilities tell you what file there's an issue with and what error (my error handling unit covers errors for three different Pascal compilers; I try to be thorough) to allow for easy debugging if there's an issue.

    I spent a good bit of time on that unit but it was well worth it in the end.

    -- Sean

    ... I hear the word "icy" is easy to spell. Looking at it, now I see why.
    --- GoldED+/LNX 1.1.5-b20240209
    * Origin: Outpost BBS * Johnson City, TN (86:100/1)