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Postings from March 2000
> On Thu, Mar 30, 2000 at 08:12:12PM -0800, William R. Ward wrote: > > Simply saying "use of uninitialized variable in line xxx" is fine, but > > once you start trying to tell the user what operator went wrong, you > > have to be accurate when you do so. > > I agree. The same correction was made for the comparison operators; > originally the warning did not distinguish between numeric and string > comparison operators. The warning should accurately reflect the code as > written. I don't think there's anything "dumb" about a user potentially (or in reality) being confused by a message that describes a concatenation operator but refers to a line containing only a double-quoted string. It looks more like Perl is the dummy here. Let's consider the notion that users should shoulder responsibility for deciphering "best effort" messages from the compiler. Personally, I find that repugnant. Bogus error messages and, to a lesser extent, poor error recovery (leading to a cascade of seriously bogus error messages) are the product of poor design, poor engineering, and/or poor programming. It is possible for a compiler to generate accurate, appropriate error messages. It's just not all that common nowadays. During the ten or so years when I was writing interpreters and compilers off and on as part of my work, I took pride in my attempts (mostly successful) to have my software generate sensible parse and run-time error messages. Because users often interacted with me directly, and because I generally worked as a contractor, I never had the option of telling my users "Well, if you don't know what my software is telling you, it's not my problem. You're just stupid." I mean, we've all had idiot users, but since when is a software tool supposed to be, on its face, an intellectual challenge for its users? So when users came to me and told me, "Hey, I have no idea what this error is," I tried to make it clearer. Generating error messages that even an idiot can (potentially) understand is a source of pride, not shame, for me. I'm dumbfounded that anyone would take a position that not only accepts Perl's sometimes (often?) poor error handling, but in fact advocates it, as though Perl should be some kind of continually stimulating intellectual puzzle. I'm even more amazed when the poor messages in question come from the warnings feature, which is ostensibly present in large part for the benefit of the less clueful. Is the point here that Perl should always be confusing, even if you activate the features that are supposed to make it safer and friendlier? I think it's clear on its face that "Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.)" as described in the original message is inappropriate behavior. Dragging "it's the same ops" into the issue is silly. That's the reason for the misbehavior, of course, but it doesn't excuse the poor message. I've never thought Perl should be a language that deliberately gets in your way, like the school bully crowding the doorway, asking for your lunch money. Or in this case, asking you to find the hidden dot operator. -josephThread Previous | Thread Next