Numbering compiler error messages?

[w0rp]

I agree with Walter about error numbers being a bad idea. 
Especially when people prefer the numbers over a description. 
MySQL has really turned me off the idea of error numbers. When I 
get an error about MySQL syntax, the message actually reads like 
this.

"Error near <snippet> <line number> <column number> ... <error 
number>"

It never tells you what kind of syntax error you made, or 
*exactly* where it actually happened (The line and column numbers 
are misleading.). You just get a message "well it broke" and an 
error number which might as well be the result of a hash 
function. As a result, I hardly ever look up the error number, 
and I just make a guess as to what I did wrong. It's usually 
faster to guess.

It's kind of like the effect bug IDs can have on commit 
messagses, which I mentioned in another thread. If you put some 
ID you can search for in a message, some people have a tendency 
to rely on the ID and forget about providing a descriptive 
message as well.

I think a better approach is to just describe the error better. 
When I use DMD I get some pretty good results already for errors. 
We just need to patch messages which may be confusing at the 
moment into being more descriptive.