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Should error messages apologize? (2013)

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Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#101

Post by kragen »

rogual wrote: post #66

I don't even like "We" in UI messages. "We couldn't find that site." "We're just updating your computer." Perhaps I'm just an old fogey, but passive voice feels like the only right choice: "The site could not be found." "Your computer is being updated." The insertion of "We" feels like an imposition; the company who wrote the code reaching in and enacting their will with your equipment, using your screen as their soa…

this sounds similar to my thesis in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39286124; what do you think of that comment?

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#102

Post by kragen »

robertlagrant wrote: post #67
8organicbits wrote: post #43

I suspect there are cultural preferences here, there's no reason to believe there's one correct answer for all of humanity. I'm from the US but I've traveled to places where it's considered rude to say "no" directly and apologies aren't common. Like when trying to order an unavailable item from a menu: - I'd like the beef burger - The chicken burger is very good - That's OK, can I have the beef burger? - Our hot dogs…

> We're in a thought bubble otherwise "HN commenter" is already a much tighter bubble than "the West".

smaller, but definitely not a subset‚ and especially not a subset of the usa

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#104

Post by dataflow »

Angostura wrote: post #37
dataflow wrote: post #16

I actually find these to be irritating if not kind of offensive. (Like the "we are experiencing larger than normal call volume" that literally always plays.) Who exactly is sorry here? The computer? It doesn't (yet?) have feelings. The engineers? They're not telepathic, they have no idea anything just happened to you, let alone feel sorry for it. It seems to be at best a random guess as to how some group of people is…

Clearly the engineers do know that something happened to the user- they are thinking about the circumstances that would have triggered the error message as they wrote the message

They don't know something happened. They only know that if something were to happen, then this message should pop up. That's not the same thing. People don't get feelings for events that they're not aware of having ever happened.

(Also, chances are good the people who authored the message aren't even the same ones currently at the company by the time you see them. Which ones would the message even apply to?)

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#105

Post by hulkmusic »

kragen wrote: post #101
rogual wrote: post #66

I don't even like "We" in UI messages. "We couldn't find that site." "We're just updating your computer." Perhaps I'm just an old fogey, but passive voice feels like the only right choice: "The site could not be found." "Your computer is being updated." The insertion of "We" feels like an imposition; the company who wrote the code reaching in and enacting their will with your equipment, using your screen as their soa…

this sounds similar to my thesis in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39286124 ; what do you think of that comment?

I know this wasn't intentional, but when I click this link, I get a "No such item" error message, which I find to be ironic given the nature of this discussion. The link just has a trailing semicolon that needs to be removed, though.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#106

Post by arrowsmith »

NiteOwl066 wrote: post #84
8organicbits wrote: post #43

I suspect there are cultural preferences here, there's no reason to believe there's one correct answer for all of humanity. I'm from the US but I've traveled to places where it's considered rude to say "no" directly and apologies aren't common. Like when trying to order an unavailable item from a menu: - I'd like the beef burger - The chicken burger is very good - That's OK, can I have the beef burger? - Our hot dogs…

Out of interest what places are those?

I haven't been there myself, but I've heard that this style of communication is very common in Japan.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#107

Post by lqet »

rogual wrote: post #66

I don't even like "We" in UI messages. "We couldn't find that site." "We're just updating your computer." Perhaps I'm just an old fogey, but passive voice feels like the only right choice: "The site could not be found." "Your computer is being updated." The insertion of "We" feels like an imposition; the company who wrote the code reaching in and enacting their will with your equipment, using your screen as their soa…

It gets even worse when error messages try to be cute or clever. It's childish and slightly patronizing.

"Whoops, sorry! This wasn't what you were looking for!"

"Oops! You broke the internet. We are trying to fix it."

"Are you lost? Let us help you home (link to home page)"

https://www.callbruno.com/en/404

Just treat me like an adult and tell me what's wrong. Preferably with a googleable error code.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#108

Post by 1970-01-01 »

jasomill wrote: post #96
1970-01-01 wrote: post #80

I once tried to link error messages directly to the offending line in their open source code, such that it would be clear to everyone what is broken. It never worked correctly, and I stopped trying. If anyone can create an elegant way to do that, it would be a game changer for open source.

Like a stack trace? jtm@socrates ~ $ dotnet new -o foo console >/dev/null 2>&1 && cd foo && cat > Program.cs && dotnet build >/dev/null 2>&1 && dotnet run String? bar = null; bar.GetHashCode(); ^D Unhandled exception. System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. at Program. $(String[] args) in /Users/jtm/foo/Program.cs:line 2 While not novel, I agree that always including stack…

I tried linking errors to their offending line in GitHub repos, including a diff of local and newest version. Perhaps with some good AI, it could work and be a novel way of fixing open source errors.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#109

Post by hbn »

rogual wrote: post #66

I don't even like "We" in UI messages. "We couldn't find that site." "We're just updating your computer." Perhaps I'm just an old fogey, but passive voice feels like the only right choice: "The site could not be found." "Your computer is being updated." The insertion of "We" feels like an imposition; the company who wrote the code reaching in and enacting their will with your equipment, using your screen as their soa…

I blame Google for popularizing that.

Honestly it was fine enough for a YouTube error, "we couldn't find that video." But then everyone started copying it, including Microsoft who, in Windows 8, updated the blue screen of death to have a "whoopsie poopsie! Your computer has a widdle boo boo!" type message, accented with a :( sad face emoticon.

Which I can guarantee was presented to countless people who lost real work. I'm sure they found that real reassuring.

Re: Should error messages apologize? (2013)

#110

Post by planede »

The only GCC error that apologizes (that I know of):

https://godbolt.org/z/GMxz5c339

"sorry, unimplemented". It really felt out-of-place when I first encountered it, but I think it messages intent a bit more than a simple "unimplemented" error message. It at least suggests that this is a shortcoming of the current implementation, so it might get implemented in a later version.

Having said that clang also doesn't implement this, and the error message doesn't apologize: "error: cannot compile this lambda conversion to variadic function yet"

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