Re: Making pgsql error messages more developers' friendly. - Mailing list pgsql-general

Csaba Nagy wrote:
> What about development time ? It is always nice to have the database
> give you some actually useful pointers instead of making you loose your
> time chasing around the error in your code. We are all just humans, do
> mistakes, and do like when the mistake is easily spotted by an error
> message pointing to the right place.
> So the rationale of the request is legitimate.

I never claimed that the request itself wasn't legitimate. And I totally
agree with you up to here.

> Your repulsion against comparisons with other databases might be
> understandable, but it's the best reference language for non-developer
> postgres users to describe the requested feature in terms of the feature
> of another database.

You think that the original statement "MySQL is better in these small
things" was an attempt to "describe the requested feature" ... really?

Guess I need to learn some non-developer english someday. Seems to be a
completely different language.


Jan

>
> Cheers,
> Csaba.
>
> On Sat, 2003-06-28 at 17:20, Jan Wieck wrote:
>> Rajesh Kumar Mallah wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi Folks,
>> >
>> > Shudnt'  messages like
>> >
>> > ERROR:  value too long for type character varying(5)
>>
>> Maybe, yes. It's just not that trivial to do.
>>
>> > MySQL is better in these small things.
>> >
>> > I think in 7.4dev fkey violation are reported better,
>> > cant such behaviours be extened to other kind of
>> > exceptions?
>>
>> We are working on it. But pointing to MySQL doesn't help a bit. If you
>> like MySQL better, then use MySQL instead and don't bother with the side
>> effects from the data type abstraction you actually bumped into.
>>
>> Sorry, I'm a bit tired of "MySQL does this ...", "MySQL is better here
>> ..." and so on and so forth. No however good error message system can be
>> used by the application programmer as replacement for input data
>> validation. Type checking, foreign keys, check constraints, they all are
>> last lines of defense, so that a bug in the application or a missing
>> input validation doesn't cause greater damage. But they are not a
>> replacement.
>>
>>
>> Jan
>>
>> --
>> #======================================================================#
>> # It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. #
>> # Let's break this rule - forgive me.                                  #
>> #================================================== JanWieck@Yahoo.com #
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
>> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
>>



--
#======================================================================#
# It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than for being right. #
# Let's break this rule - forgive me.                                  #
#================================================== JanWieck@Yahoo.com #