You are in a Helicopter
This is an old story, from back before
they invented GPS or even radar! My favorite version goes like this:
Some big shot goes to Seattle and hires a helicopter to take him to his meeting. As happens in Seattle, it was a foggy day. After a while, the pilot says to his passenger, "I don't know where we are. I am going to go lower to ask for directions." (Must have been a female pilot, because a guy would never ask for directions). As they come out of the fog bank, the pilot sees a man in the window of an office building. The pilot yells out to the man, "Where am I?" The man in the office yells back, "You're in a helicopter!" The pilot thanks him and takes off. The big shot asks,"How did that help you know where we are?" And the pilot says, "His answer was technically correct and totally useless, so I know that is the Microsoft Tech Support Center, and our destination is just to the left of this building."
But, back to the Notes world. How about this one: "Object variable not set!" Okay, you know which variable is not set, and you even know what line of code has the problem. So why don't you just tell me? Why do I have to fire up the debugger? And remember - a developer came up with this error message for other developers. Is there some limit to the length of error tweets?
This message is not new, so what drove me to this post? I got this message the other day: "dojoUsage is deprecated and no longer supported." Number one, I didn't put this line of code in my custom control. So why is someone putting deprecated code in my control? Number two, if you know this is deprecated, you must know what the modern replacement is. Again, some developer came up with this error message for other developers.
So, as professional developers, can we all agree to provide meaningful error messages? Maybe even include some options for resolution? And none of this "see your administrator for more information." I am the administrator, and I only know what you tell me.
Some big shot goes to Seattle and hires a helicopter to take him to his meeting. As happens in Seattle, it was a foggy day. After a while, the pilot says to his passenger, "I don't know where we are. I am going to go lower to ask for directions." (Must have been a female pilot, because a guy would never ask for directions). As they come out of the fog bank, the pilot sees a man in the window of an office building. The pilot yells out to the man, "Where am I?" The man in the office yells back, "You're in a helicopter!" The pilot thanks him and takes off. The big shot asks,"How did that help you know where we are?" And the pilot says, "His answer was technically correct and totally useless, so I know that is the Microsoft Tech Support Center, and our destination is just to the left of this building."
But, back to the Notes world. How about this one: "Object variable not set!" Okay, you know which variable is not set, and you even know what line of code has the problem. So why don't you just tell me? Why do I have to fire up the debugger? And remember - a developer came up with this error message for other developers. Is there some limit to the length of error tweets?
This message is not new, so what drove me to this post? I got this message the other day: "dojoUsage is deprecated and no longer supported." Number one, I didn't put this line of code in my custom control. So why is someone putting deprecated code in my control? Number two, if you know this is deprecated, you must know what the modern replacement is. Again, some developer came up with this error message for other developers.
So, as professional developers, can we all agree to provide meaningful error messages? Maybe even include some options for resolution? And none of this "see your administrator for more information." I am the administrator, and I only know what you tell me.
Category Best Practices
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