Errors and their messages

seb seb at tesco.net
Sat Dec 1 23:06:21 EST 2001


Hi all,

i think i've only ever followed up here before, but here goes:

The python error messages presented on the command line seem to me to
be particularly gregious.

Say someone is looking to get schoolkids to be involved in programming
(and python seems to be a reasonable choice here so i understand),
then something like:

Traceback (innermost last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
  File "win32com\client\__init__.py", line 13, in Dispatch
    dispatch, userName =
dynamic._GetGoodDispatchAndUserName(dispatch,userName,c
lsctx)
  File "win32com\client\dynamic.py", line 67, in
_GetGoodDispatchAndUserName
    return (_GetGoodDispatch(IDispatch, clsctx), userName)
  File "win32com\client\dynamic.py", line 58, in _GetGoodDispatch
    IDispatch = pythoncom.CoCreateInstance(IDispatch, None, clsctx,
pythoncom.II
D_IDispatch)

doesn't make it easy.

OK, i might be trying to do a bit more here, but even

>>> lala
Traceback (innermost last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
NameError: lala
>>>

is cryptic.

Don't see how a 9-year old would grasp this. I know thirty year olds
that balk at these sort of messages, understandably so, they're not
programmers.

seb.





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