[Patches] Patch: AttributeError and NameError: second attempt.

[Greg Ward]

On 26 May 2000, Guido van Rossum said:
> Sorry for the barrage of messages showing me thinking aloud.  I'm
> beginning to realize what makes me feel uneasy with Nick's approach.
> This kind of user-friendliness should really be in the tools, not in
> the core language implementation!  And the friendliness should only be
> paid for when a traceback is printed.

I'll buy that the really fancy-pants stuff belongs in the tools.  But I
think you should seriously consider small tweaks to improve Python's
error messages to make them more useful to newbies.  The terseness of
"NameError: foo" does seem to be a common complaint.

I think Nick's patch is on the borderline between tweak and fancy stuff;
perhaps a toned-down version (eg. friendlier messages, but skip the O(n)
search through a namespace) would be acceptable?

        Greg
-- 
Greg Ward - software developer                gward@mems-exchange.org
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