Quality of errors in DMD

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d]

On 9/4/2016 2:17 AM, John Colvin wrote:
> On Sunday, 4 September 2016 at 05:13:49 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 9/3/2016 7:35 PM, John Colvin wrote:
>>> In my experience getting a clue as to what is was the compiler didn't like is
>>> very useful. Often the only way I can find a workaround is by locating the
>>> assert in the compiler source and working out what it might possibly be to do
>>> with, then making informed guesses about what semi-equivalent code I can write
>>> that will avoid the bug.
>>>
>>> If the assert just had a little more info, it might save me a fair amount of
>>> time.
>>
>> If you're willing to look at the file/line of where the assert tripped, I
>> don't see how a message would save any time at all.
>
> Because the message would give me a clue immediately, without me having to go
> looking in the compiler source (!). Also, I have a vague clue of how dmd works,
> because I'm interested,

I don't know why opening a file and navigating to a line would consume a fair 
amount of time.


 > but someone else in my position with a compiler crash in
 > front of them and a deadline to hit isn't going to want to have to understand it
 > to find out "oh it's the variadic args marked scope that the compiler is messing
 > up on".

I don't think that's realistic. It'd be like me trying to guess why I got a 
kernel panic.

As I mentioned before, assert failures are usually the result of the last edit 
one did. The problem is already narrowed down.