Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!itsgw!steinmetz!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: friendly messages
Message-ID: <1079@auspex.UUCP>
Date: 26 Feb 89 21:04:45 GMT
References: <435@laic.UUCP> <955@auspex.UUCP> <9218@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <5734@bsu-cs.UUCP> <90507@sun.uucp> <259@celerity.UUCP> <4970@xenna.Encore.COM> <1069@auspex.UUCP> <4985@xenna.Encore.COM>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 11

>Ah, but Guy, if the phone system were more like VMS then they'd surely
>have to charge you for unanswered calls and the like or they'd go
>broke!

I neither want UNIX nor the phone system to be "more like VMS" in that
regard.  I just want them to be less prone to withholding information
from me when reporting an error, since that information could allow me
more quickly to fix the problem they're reporting.  I also don't want to
see people equating "better error messages" with "error messages like
VMS", either when arging against better error messages or when trying to
improve them!