Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!unm-la!lanl!cmcl2!rutgers!apple!bbn!mit-eddie!ll-xn!adelie!mirror!frog!john
From: john@frog.UUCP (John Woods)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: too many enumerated types?
Keywords: SystemV ld perror
Message-ID: <1430@X.UUCP>
Date: 14 Feb 89 07:02:00 GMT
References: <435@laic.UUCP> <955@auspex.UUCP> <9218@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <1049@vsi.COM>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Misanthropes-R-Us
Lines: 19

In article <1049@vsi.COM>, friedl@vsi.COM (Stephen J. Friedl) writes:
>      Reliable sources tell that perror(3) will still be in the
> next SVID, but there are `Future Directions' that are much more
> substantial (they will make the error messages look more like
> VMS).

I attended a System V Release 4.0 Software Developers' Conference in December,
and I can attest that they are definitely making the error messages look like
VMS.  They showed an example of 5 different current UNIX utilities trying to
open an unreadable file, and each gave different one-line complaint, of
varying helpfulness.  Then they showed an example of The New Wave, a four-line
error message which took 3 lines to misdiagnose the problem, and reminded
you that this was, in fact, an error.  Yup.  Just like VMS... :-)
-- 
John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (508) 626-1101
...!decvax!frog!john, john@frog.UUCP, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw@eddie.mit.edu

Presumably this means that it is vital to get the wrong answers quickly.
		Kernighan and Plauger, The Elements of Programming Style