comments (not for humans)
A lot of the frameworks I have been using lately (both .NET and Java), share a common issue. This issue has gone from beeing a slight annoyance to a major concern.

The issue is rooted in the way frameworks use exceptions, or more precisely in the way the use error messages. I've commonly experienced errors looking like this:
  • Wrong string format
  • Cannot open file
  • Unable to contact server
  • Illegal key size

These error messages miss a very important part - Which string?, which file?, which server? The user of the framwork really needs to know say which part of the configuration is erronous. Appending the actual string og sever to the error message really isn't that hard.

Consider the following error messages:
  • Wrong string format in ip adress span : 192.168.0.1-192.168.0
  • Cannot open file: my.settings
  • Unable to contact directory server: 192.168.0.3:389
  • Illegal key size for shared key

These small additions actually makes it a lot easier to figure out where to start looking.

And, yes, a lot of framworks give large stacktraces, where you, by reading the method names, can deduct where in your configuration the problem is, but mostly the messages found in the stacktraces are aimed at the framework developers.

Comments closed for this post