Numbering compiler error messages?

[Walter Bright]

On 3/29/2014 10:45 AM, Brad Anderson wrote:
> On Saturday, 29 March 2014 at 07:34:21 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 3/28/2014 1:32 PM, Brad Anderson wrote:
>>> I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on that point. I've found VC++
>>> error numbers invaluable whenever I confront a confusing error. There are often
>>> examples of what cause the error and how to fix it.
>>
>> And why doesn't grepping on the text of the error message work?
>>
>
> grepping what? Surely you don't mean the dmd source code.

Grepping whatever data you are searching for an explanation in.


> When you google dmd
> error messages you'll often get ancient D1 forum posts that don't
> necessarily apply anymore and you have to weed through a half
> dozen different posts before you find some answers.

That wouldn't change with error numbers. What you can do is limit the search to 
the spec. And, having a page with "error messages explained" can be created and 
then use search within that page - this is exactly as effective as having a page 
with "error numbers explained".


> Perhaps a good compromise would be for errors that are complex
> and can't easily be explained in the terse error message there
> could be a url on the end that takes the user to a page on the
> site or wiki where they can read more.

As mentioned earlier, I'd love to do urls, but,

1. user visible urls are terribly ugly to emit to the console
2. consoles don't support clickable urls
3. consoles don't support hypertext links