From: Eric Christopherson <echristopherson@...>
Date: 2012-09-28T04:26:22+09:00
Subject: Re: How To Rectify This Error?

On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 3:33 PM, Henry Maddocks <hmaddocks@me.com> wrote:
>
> On 27/09/2012, at 8:18 AM, Eric Christopherson wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 5:00 AM, Jan E. <lists@ruby-forum.com> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> The error message is actually telling you what's wrong: The parser ran
>>> into the end of the file while we was still expecing an "end".
>>
>> True, but the error message is hard to decipher. When it says "$end",
>> it means the end of the file; when it says "keyword_end", it means the
>> actual word "end".
>
> WAT! "keyword_end" is hard to understand? This is the ruby equivalent of missing a closing brace or a semi colon. A Ruby coder is going to see this error message all the time.
>
> The fact that the OP thought it was easier to post a message here rather than working it out himself boggles the mind.

Actually, I'd say it's the "$end" part that's hard to understand; what
the heck's that dollar sign for? But the whole thing can and should be
made more user-friendly and less dependent on the terminology used in
the implementation.

(And if these parser/lexer/whatever symbols are documented somewhere
other than the source itself, please point it out to me.)