Write better error messages
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Write better error messages
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Re: Write better error messages
#2No post body was provided.
Re: Write better error messages
#3I would, if i had any evidence at all that they would be read and acted on. I’m convinced even seemingly competent people are just rendered contextually blind by the appearance of any error at all.
In the past month, i’ve had about a dozen interactions like this:
developer: your service crashed, here’s a screenshot of the last 5 lines of the crash
me: do you see where the final text you just pasted is “RuntimeError: Did not find ENVVAR, ensure this is set to the proper value (see ) and then restart this service”
developer: yeah?
me: well, did you do that thing?
developer: what thing?
me:
Re: Write better error messages
#4There are fundamentally two classes of error message:
1. Information that can help a technically engaged person debug a problem.
2. Information that can help a user of the system understand what they have to do the overcome the problem.
Since most error messages are created by people responsible for debugging the system they tend to be of the 1st class. There has to be a way to provide different information based on who is getting the error.
Re: Write better error messages
#5I would, if i had any evidence at all that they would be read and acted on. I’m convinced even seemingly competent people are just rendered contextually blind by the appearance of any error at all. In the past month, i’ve had about a dozen interactions like this: developer: your service crashed, here’s a screenshot of the last 5 lines of the crash me: do you see where the final text you just pasted is “RuntimeError:…
Actually reading (and understanding, acting upon) error messages seems to be part of the learning process of every developer. And while more senior devs usually do read error messages, even they sometimes, rather than reading it will jump to behavior like "trying again a different way", before looking closely what went wrong.
Re: Write better error messages
#6I would, if i had any evidence at all that they would be read and acted on. I’m convinced even seemingly competent people are just rendered contextually blind by the appearance of any error at all. In the past month, i’ve had about a dozen interactions like this: developer: your service crashed, here’s a screenshot of the last 5 lines of the crash me: do you see where the final text you just pasted is “RuntimeError:…
How many interactions didn't you have, because the developer read the error message, read the Wiki, and ultimately solved the issue themselves ?
Re: Write better error messages
#7There are fundamentally two classes of error message: 1. Information that can help a technically engaged person debug a problem. 2. Information that can help a user of the system understand what they have to do the overcome the problem. Since most error messages are created by people responsible for debugging the system they tend to be of the 1st class. There has to be a way to provide different information based on…
There's a fatal flaw in assuming that there's no overlap between groups 1 and 2.
Re: Write better error messages
#8I would, if i had any evidence at all that they would be read and acted on. I’m convinced even seemingly competent people are just rendered contextually blind by the appearance of any error at all. In the past month, i’ve had about a dozen interactions like this: developer: your service crashed, here’s a screenshot of the last 5 lines of the crash me: do you see where the final text you just pasted is “RuntimeError:…
This just means that the error message needs to be more clear. For example, after the error itself, it could give direct advice: “PERFORM THESE STEPS: You must define ENVVAR. Go to . Set ENVVAR to a proper value and restart the service.”
Notice the direct language. It reads like an order. The less direct the message, the higher the chances that the user will not act upon it.
Re: Write better error messages
#9I would, if i had any evidence at all that they would be read and acted on. I’m convinced even seemingly competent people are just rendered contextually blind by the appearance of any error at all. In the past month, i’ve had about a dozen interactions like this: developer: your service crashed, here’s a screenshot of the last 5 lines of the crash me: do you see where the final text you just pasted is “RuntimeError:…
Well, imagine the error was simply "RuntimeError: Environment variable not set" instead, then how much of your time would have been wasted by those dozen interactions?
Re: Write better error messages
#10Watched the new Quantum Leap yesterday (it's not great) and there was this really cringeworthy moment when something goes wrong with their awesome supercomputer and the screen flashes a giant "INTERNAL SYNTAX ERROR". Apparently, somebody didn't run their linter before sending people through time. Too bad.