Zsh Mailing List Archive
Messages sorted by: Reverse Date, Date, Thread, Author

Re: Are there zsh error message explanation



Bart Schaefer wrote on Thu, Dec 15, 2022 at 19:28:15 -0800:
> On Thu, Dec 15, 2022 at 1:18 PM Daniel Shahaf <d.s@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > To answer your question, that particular error message means the
> > CSH_NULL_GLOB option has fired.  The message could be improved, yes.
> 
> We've had this discussion before and decided to stay with the error
> messages that all shells with similar features have in common, even if
> they may be terse.

Pointer to the previous discussion, please?  I grepped and haven't
found anything, and from your (terse…) summary I don't understand why
we prefer compatibility with other shells over user-friendliness,
especially considering that:

- "Optimize for the common case."  Most people who will see an error
  message are not newly converted from other shells.  For instance,
  changing zsh's error message to "bad command or file name" wouldn't
  make things perceptibly easier for cmd.exe convertees.

- It's not an either/or case.  If the current error message says "foo"
  then we can change it to say "foo: some elaboration about foo".  The
  leading "foo" part would still be there.

- The error message is unclear and should be improved.  Compatibility
  doesn't mean we can't ever change the error message; it just limits
  what changes we will consider.

Cheers,

Daniel




Messages sorted by: Reverse Date, Date, Thread, Author