Compiler Error Messages Considered Unhelpful¶
Becker, B. A., Denny, P., Pettit, R., Bouchard, D., Bouvier, D. J., Harrington, B., Kamil, A., et al. (2019). Compiler Error Messages Considered Unhelpful: The Landscape of Text-Based Programming Error Message Research. Proceedings of the 2019 ITiCSE Working Group Reports (ITiCSE-WGR '19), 177-210.
Cited by¶
2 citations across 2 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Diagnostically Inert Signal
- modern compilers and linters were redesigned deliberately into the repair register, showing the pattern is a design choice.
This sourceComprehensive review of compiler/error-message research documenting both the uninformativeness of legacy diagnostics and the deliberate redesign toward pinpointed, explanatory messages with suggested fixes — the migration from the announcement register to the repair register.
- modern compilers and linters were redesigned deliberately into the repair register, showing the pattern is a design choice.
Domain-specific¶
- Error-Message Opacity
- The supporting craft transfers with it: Nielsen's heuristic ("help users recognise, diagnose, and recover from errors" — plain language, precise problem, constructive solution), aviation human-factors master-caution/warning design (warnings must enable specific diagnostic action, not merely announce a problem), and compiler-error-message research (large productivity gains from well-designed parser errors) are all the same principle in different interface substrates
This sourceA working-group survey consolidating fifty years of research on programming error messages, documenting their unhelpfulness for novices and the intervention studies that have tried to improve them - measured on novice error rates and time to resolution, with effects reported as modest rather than large.
Supported in partVerified against the source
- The supporting craft transfers with it: Nielsen's heuristic ("help users recognise, diagnose, and recover from errors" — plain language, precise problem, constructive solution), aviation human-factors master-caution/warning design (warnings must enable specific diagnostic action, not merely announce a problem), and compiler-error-message research (large productivity gains from well-designed parser errors) are all the same principle in different interface substrates
Verification¶
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