From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Poor quality error messages Date: Wed, 5 Jan 2022 18:37:18 +0000 Message-ID: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="35703"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Wed Jan 05 19:43:03 2022 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1n5BFX-00099y-5t for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Wed, 05 Jan 2022 19:43:03 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:46534 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1n5BFV-0002nl-FG for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Wed, 05 Jan 2022 13:43:01 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:45284) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1n5BAC-0001UK-91 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 05 Jan 2022 13:37:32 -0500 Original-Received: from colin.muc.de ([193.149.48.1]:54404 helo=mail.muc.de) by eggs.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1n5BAA-0001qC-2s for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 05 Jan 2022 13:37:31 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail 83385 invoked by uid 3782); 5 Jan 2022 18:37:18 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p4fe15651.dip0.t-ipconnect.de [79.225.86.81]) (using STARTTLS) by colin.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Wed, 05 Jan 2022 19:37:18 +0100 Original-Received: (qmail 20056 invoked by uid 1000); 5 Jan 2022 18:37:18 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline X-Submission-Agent: TMDA/1.3.x (Ph3nix) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de Received-SPF: pass client-ip=193.149.48.1; envelope-from=acm@muc.de; helo=mail.muc.de X-Spam_score_int: -18 X-Spam_score: -1.9 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.9 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:284262 Archived-At: Hello, Emacs. During a bootstrap (not of the standard code), the make failed, presenting me with the following half error message: In toplevel form: cedet/ede.el: Error: No applicable method: initialize-instance, nil, nil make[2]: *** [Makefile:308: cedet/ede.elc] Error 1 make[2]: *** Waiting for unfinished jobs.... .. Is this really the best we can do? The following faults with this half message are readily apparent: (i) There is no line/column numbers of the failure point in the file. "In toplevel form" isn't very helpful. (ii) There is no preposition or verb indicating the relationship between the missing method (whatever that is) and initialize-instance. (iii) Is initialize-instance the method that is missing? (iv) To what is the method (whatever that is) meant to be applicable? To initialise-instance, perhaps? Or to "nil, nil"? Or to something else? (v) It is not clear what the "nil, nil" at the end of the half message is meant to mean. Just for info, grep finds no matches for "initialize-instance" in ede.el. If anybody can help me on any of these points with this half error message, please do. I'm intending to fix (or at least ameliorate) point (i) in my current work on the correct positions for warning messages. At least I know what's causing the problem, in that if I remove certain bits of code the error doesn't happen. That's not helping me diagnose the mechanism of this failure, though. Thanks for any help! -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).