From: Joachim Wuttke <Joachim_Wuttke@...>
Date: 2004-10-07T00:02:37+09:00
Subject: Re: quality of error messages

Sorry, there was a misprint in the crucial line of my last
mail. Here comes the hopefully correct version:

> Encouraged by your quick response, I try to explain better
> what I meant in example 2:
> 
> class Foo
>     attr_reader ... # here I forgot :pos
>     def initialize
>         ...
>         @pos = ...
>     end
> end
> ...
> blabla = someClass.someMethod.link_to_another_class.methods_pos.pos
> 
> => system complains "no such method"
> 
> Formally, the system is right: I forgot to declare the read
> access method for the variable pos.
> 
> But:
> (1) the system should tell me which method in the above
> chain causes the problem
> (2) as a naive programmer, with a background in other languages,
> I do not think of pos as method. I think of it as variable.
> Once the system does not find a method, it could check whether
> there is a local variable of same name, and then print out
> an error message like
>    "no method 'pos', no read access to local variable 'pos'".
> 
> Joachim