I remember years ago there was a contest for the most error messages from the fewest lines of code from a compiler. I believe you could get the IBM COBOL compiler to generate 600 lines of error messages if you put a single period in column 6. Of course times have changed and I don't know how to get a punched card into a linux machine. :)
> I remember years ago there was a contest for the most error messages from the fewest lines of code from a compiler. When I started being exposed to and interested in computers around 1982, I inherited a stack of Creative Computing magazines dating back to maybe 1978-ish. I remember reading about these error message contests in Creative Computing. Today, I understand why that was. In the olden days, it was important…
That's a good point. I remember debugging a core dump... in hex... and going and circling memory addresses with a red pen and chaining them together until I found the problem.