Error handling in software is something which is traditionally difficult to pin down and do right. As I’m at work, I won’t get into a big discussion about errors (though I could). Mostly, I want to keep around a pointer to this slashdot post which describes a brilliant method of letting the user know exactly why something failed. Basically, it’s a semantic stack trace — each layer of the software contributes its understanding as to what went wrong, as a user-readable string.
You know, I would really like to work in a language which has … Continue Reading