• Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    Go with what works

    Error messages should contain the information that caused the error. Your average Microsoft error “error 37253” is worthless to me

    Keep functions or methods short. Anything longer than 20 - 50 lines is likely too long

    Comment why is happening, not what

    PHP is actually a really nice language to work with both for web and command line utils

    Don’t over engineer, KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid

    SOLID is quite okay but sometimes there are solid reasons to break those rules

    MVC is a PITA in practice, avoid it when possible

    • Omgpwnies@lemmy.zip
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      1 year ago

      Your average Microsoft error “error 37253” is worthless to me

      This is a security thing. A descriptive error message is useful for troubleshooting, but an error message that is useful enough can also give away information about architecture (especially if the application uses remote resources). Instead, provide an error code and have the user contact support to look up what the error means, and support can walk the user through troubleshooting without revealing architecture info.

      Another reason can be i18n/l10n: Instead of keeping translations for thousands of error messages, you just need to translate “An Error Has Occurred: {errnum}”

      • BatmanAoD@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        Those benefits both make sense, but are those really the original motivation for Microsoft designing the Blue Screen of Death this way? They sound more like retroactive justifications, especially since BSODs were around well before security and internationalization were common concerns.

        • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Linux has something similar, kernel panics. However, with Linux you get useful information dumped on your screen.

          Nothing gets logged on Linux either, just like windows and that makes sense. The kernel itself messed up and can’t trust its own memory anymore. Writing to disk may cause you to fuck up your disk, so you simply stop everything.

          Still though, Linux dumps useful info whereas windows just gives you this dumb useless code.