Re: Is this a gcc bug?

Re: Is this a gcc bug?

[dewar]

<<For the Mercury compiler, many error messages have two different forms,
one of which includes additional information such as hints about possible
causes of the error.  By default, the compiler prints the concise versions,
plus a line at the end of the compiler output saying "For more information,
recompile with `-E'", which is the compiler option to enable the more
verbose messages.  I think this is a good compromise.
>>

But that's a response about verbosity, my question which I repeat:

> So the question is, should an error message like this try to educate,
> or just take the simple minded non-determinstic viewpoint.

is about point of view. These are orthogonal issues.

Re: Is this a gcc bug?

[Fergus Henderson]

On 12-Jan-2001, dewar@gnat.com <dewar@gnat.com> wrote:
> <<For the Mercury compiler, many error messages have two different forms,
> one of which includes additional information such as hints about possible
> causes of the error.  By default, the compiler prints the concise versions,
> plus a line at the end of the compiler output saying "For more information,
> recompile with `-E'", which is the compiler option to enable the more
> verbose messages.  I think this is a good compromise.
> >>
> 
> But that's a response about verbosity, my question which I repeat:
> 
> > So the question is, should an error message like this try to educate,
> > or just take the simple minded non-determinstic viewpoint.
> 
> is about point of view. These are orthogonal issues.

They're not entirely orthogonal, since if you're restricted to using
only concise error messages, then often you don't have sufficient room
to educate.

The simple-minded viewpoint could easily mislead the user,
while the correct viewpoint could confuse the uneducate user.
If the choice is between being misled or being confused,
I think it is better to leave the user confused, so long as
we give them a hint about how to obtain more information.
With a `--verbose-diagnostics' option, as outlined above,
that is quite feasible.  So I vote for trying to educate.

-- 
Fergus Henderson <fjh@cs.mu.oz.au>  |  "I have always known that the pursuit
                                    |  of excellence is a lethal habit"
WWW: < http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~fjh >  |     -- the last words of T. S. Garp.

Re: Warning Messages (was: Is this a gcc bug?)

[Laurent Guerby]

An alternative solution for warnings where the only valid hint is one
paragraph long (or more ;-), is to put a really short one, even if
mysterious, plus "see GCC documentation for more information" or "GCC
documentation has more information", and have sections "Common
Warnings for Language X" in the compiler manual detailing the
issues. Such a solution would solve cleanly the education issue, and
the "meta-education" issue: there's a manual dude! ;-).

I often found that people ask themselves questions the first time they
see a warning, then the messages is just an id and it's better when
it's short in listings.

-- 
Laurent Guerby <guerby@acm.org>