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Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2010 19:42:20 -0400
From: "Peter C. Chapin" <pcc482719@gmail.com>
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Subject: Re: [Ada] made me hate programming
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Date: 2010-06-30T19:42:20-04:00
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On 2010-06-30 13:05, Warren wrote:

> They barely even read the error messages and simply 
> take in the one fact "error in line x". Not which kind of 
> error or any level of detail. They simply want to know the
> quick answer for "getting past the error".  They don't want
> to know why it is an error, so long as they can "fix it",
> and fix it now ("my assignment is due"). In otherwords,
> the compiler is holding them back.

My students are often like this as well. In fact, I notice they hardly
ever read any error messages regardless of the source. If an error
message box pops up in some application many of my students will dismiss
it at once automatically. It's almost like a reflex action. If they are
in the process of asking me for help the conversation goes something
like this:

Me: "So what did that error message say?"

Student: "I have no idea."

Me: "You should probably at least read those messages before saying you
are stuck."

It can be frustrating.

All that said, I do think that many novice programmer's find compiler
error messages baffling and largely unhelpful. The part that says "error
on line xx" they understand. The part that says something like, "no
suitable subprograms found to resolve yyy. Candidates are..." can be
hard for a complete beginner to digest. They don't really understand
what the message means so they look at line xx and hope for a flash of
insight. Obviously as an educator it's my role to help them learn what
such messages mean, but it takes time and it isn't always easy.

I will say GNAT has rather good error messages overall. I have had more
than one student tell me that he/she found GNAT error messages better
than "any other compiler I've used" (meaning g++).

Peter