On Tue, Dec 26, 2017 at 12:31:02AM +0100, Klemens Nanni wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 25, 2017 at 03:57:00PM -0700, Theo de Raadt wrote:
> > I think this is a silly solution, and the documentation is clear
> > enough.
> The manual page certainly is clear enough but the current error message
> is logically wrong, as there are sufficient Xs *in* `XXXXXXs' but just
> not at the end of it, call it nitpicking if you will.
>
> > How did this happen to you? Show the place where it happened to you.
> > Would the text you propose actually have saved you 1 second of time
> > to help you realize what was wrong? I don't think so.
> Just a typo really making me think "this could be clearer". So yes, I
> find telling this way actually saves time understanding the error, even
> if so little.
>
> > If you weren't familiar that the template has to be minimum 6 XXXXXX at
> > end of the string, then you hadn't achieved familiarity of the
> > subject matter yet.
> I agree that knowing one from the manual implies knowing the other as
> well, but it doesn't seem reason enough to keep the error message as is,
> hence the diff.
I disagree. An error message does not need to document everything, An
erro message should short and clear enough together with the doumentation.
This reminds me of the old IRIX compiler, that would cite complete
parapgraphs of the C standard in error mesasges. Of course logically
it was all correct, but it lead to long and unreadable error messages
that filled up disks with build logs.
-Otto
