• Thorry84@feddit.nl
    48·
    3 months ago

    Hmmm command not found, let me just try the same command a couple more times, this time it will work right?

    In IT teaching users to actually read and understand errors is always an uphill battle.

    • skulbuny@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      20·
      3 months ago

      I learned early in my software engineering career these two beautiful rules of debugging:

      1. Read all of the words
      2. Believe them
      • Elvith Ma'for@feddit.org
        10·
        3 months ago

        Unless you were the one writing the program and its error messages - then check, that you didn’t mess up there…

      • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
        5·
        3 months ago

        Addendum to 2: never believe that what they say is relevant to what’s actually happening here. You have a lot of faith that the people writing error messages knew what they were doing!

        • Trainguyrom@reddthat.comEnglish
          3·
          3 months ago

          Having written some error messages in a godforsaken database frontend, an error message only means that something didn’t work correctly and may or may not correctly indicate what is actually wrong

        • skulbuny@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          2·
          3 months ago

          I mean, if the error says “variable foo is not defined” I don’t think it’s wise to go “I’m pretty sure it’s defined, the compiler is just wrong” 😂

          • Ethan@programming.devEnglish
            2·
            3 months ago

            I don’t know, have you ever used JavaScript? I’ve run into some really fucking weird bugs. I’ve also spent hours trying to find the source of an error message only to discover the error message was lying and caused by some other error.

    • smeg@feddit.ukEnglish
      4·
      3 months ago

      Never dealt with an intermittent failure or race condition, eh?