Re: [Maxima-discuss] informative messages, was: Maxima CAS branch, master, updated. branch-5_38-base-189-g0ab4c89

[Raymond T. <toy...@gm...>]

>>>>> "Robert" == Robert Dodier <rob...@gm...> writes:

    >> On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 2:39 AM, Gunter Königsmann
    >> 
    >>> +    (if (eql cmdstorage nil)
    >>> +      (merror "draw: Cannot create file '~a'. Probably maxima_tempdir
    >>> doesn't point to a writable directory." gfn))

    Robert> My comment on this is that it's preferable to carefully separate what's
    Robert> known and what's conjectured. In this case I'd prefer this:

    Robert> draw: cannot create temporary file '~a'. 
    Robert> draw: perhaps maxima_tempdir doesn't point to a writeable directory.

Didn't look, but if gfn is the full path, then I don't think it's
really necessary to say anything else.  It's pretty clear that the
file can't be created and the user needs to figure out from the path
why.

    Robert> or for the second one,

    Robert> draw: ensure that maxima_tempdir points to a writeable directory.

    Robert> or perhaps just omit it -- after all the vast majority of error messages
    Robert> in Maxima don't include any attempt at diagnosis or repair. As to

I'm ok with no attempt at diagnosis or repair, but I strongly want
error messages to give me as much information as possible about why
the error happened.

So, no messages like

   Failed to compute foo.

But messages like

   Failed to compute foo because bar is not baz.

or something.

--
Ray