• From: "Liam R. E. Quin" <liam@f...>
• To: Rick Jelliffe <rjelliffe@a...>, xml-dev <xml-dev@l...>
• Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2018 22:40:03 -0500

On Wed, 2018-11-14 at 12:13 +1100, Rick Jelliffe wrote:
> Systems that pretend to report diagnostics (efficient or triggering
> causes)
> when they just present more symptoms (proximate cause) are the bane
> of the
> computing industry.

They are.

Years ago i wrote an error-reporting library for Unix systems that gave
precise diagnostics in a lot of situations -- e.g. the existing error:
$ mkdir /bin/sh/boy
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/bin/sh/boy’: Not a directory

and mine,
$ mkdir /bin/sh/boy
mkdir: cannot create directory ‘/bin/sh/boy’:
mkdir: /bin/sh is a regular file and connot contain subdirectories.

People hated it at the time saying it was too verbose. But it was aimed
at trying to identify the likely actual problem rather than reporting
the symptom, exactly as you say.

Liam


-- 
Liam Quin - web slave for https://www.fromoldbooks.org/
with fabulous vintage art and fascinating texts to read.
Click here to have the slave beaten.

• References:
  • XSD error cvc-elt is plain misleading
    • From: Rick Jelliffe <rjelliffe@a...>