Re: [PATCH 0/6] Error reporting and hints for missing modules

[Ludovic Courtès]

myglc2 <address@hidden> skribis:

> On 11/10/2017 at 00:04 Ludovic Courtès writes:
>>
>> Thrilled by this idea, I pushed an unbound-variable handler that can
>> provide hints, such as:
>>
>>   configuration.scm:88:19: zip: unbound variable
>>   hint: Try adding `(use-modules (gnu packages compression))'.
>>
>> Feedback welcome!
>
> I built and played with this.  If I follow some of the hints literally
> they lead me astray. Here are some suggested hint rewording.

Again, it’s a hint, it could be wrong.

So perhaps that’s a good reason for “Did you mean xyz?”, ending with a
question mark (like GCC does), rather than a sentence that looks
assertive.

In the example above, it may be less confusing if we write:

  Did you forget (use-modules …)?

With the question mark, the user understands that this may or may not be
the cause of the error.

Thoughts?

Ludo’.