On Thu, Apr 2, 2015 at 7:02 AM, kcrisman <kcris...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> We could translate en dash into hypen on the commandline to avoid that
>> surprise...
>
>
> Interesting idea, though what if it was intended in something, such as a
> plot legend?
>
Another idea would be to do something only if an exception is actually
raised. I.e., if a user interactively runs some block of input (in a
notebook, command line, whatever), and it raises an exception, we
could have a library of tests we run on that input which could then be
used to provide further help to the user. For example, if the input
string is
"x sin(x)"
which by default results in
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
then the UI could call a function such as
sage.misc.error_hints("x sin(x)", stack trace info, globals())
that in this case might return something like
"In Python multiplication is denoted using an asterisk. For example
to multiply 2 times 3 write '2*3'."
The hint could then be displayed before or after or next to the traceback.
We would slowly build up a body of hint heuristics based on questions
we get from users. The very first one might involve an em-dash.
Another example is the following. Suppose the user types
var('x')
and gets the error "TypeError: 'str' object is not callable". Then
our hint would point out that they have set var equal to a string and
should set it back to var by typing reset('var'). I have to answer
exactly this question somewhat regularly.
Another: suppose the user types
x + y
and gets "NameError: name 'y' is not defined"... then we tell them about var.
A large amount of common help/support questions could have the answers
automated and built in. This would be 100% optional, triggered only
on interactive errors, and not change Sage's library in any way
(except possibly with the addition of this).
-- William
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William (http://wstein.org)
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