Re: [PATCH 0/6] Error reporting and hints for missing modules

[myglc2 <myglc2@gmail.com>]

On 11/11/2017 at 23:02 Ludovic Courtès writes:

> myglc2 <myglc2@gmail.com> skribis:
>
>> On 11/10/2017 at 00:04 Ludovic Courtès writes:
>>>
>>> Thrilled by this idea, I pushed an unbound-variable handler that can
>>> provide hints, such as:
>>>
>>>   configuration.scm:88:19: zip: unbound variable
>>>   hint: Try adding `(use-modules (gnu packages compression))'.
>>>
>>> Feedback welcome!
>>
>> I built and played with this.  If I follow some of the hints literally
>> they lead me astray. Here are some suggested hint rewording.
>
> Again, it’s a hint, it could be wrong.
>
> So perhaps that’s a good reason for “Did you mean xyz?”, ending with a
> question mark (like GCC does), rather than a sentence that looks
> assertive.
>
> In the example above, it may be less confusing if we write:
>
>   Did you forget (use-modules …)?
>
> With the question mark, the user understands that this may or may not be
> the cause of the error.
>
> Thoughts?
>
Hi Ludo’,

I have lost your context here. But if you mean that in e.g., ...

>  *** test2: "NON EXISTANT PACKAGE MODULE (qemu) for qemu PACKAGE SPECIFIED"
>
> The error messages ...
>
> /root/ctest/test2:4:0: error: module (gnu packages qemu) not found
> hint: Try adding `(use-package-modules virtualization)'.
>
> ... are followed literally in test2.fix, which does not fix the
> problem because the stale and non-existant 'qemu' package module
> reference also needs to be removed.
>
> Maybe a better hint would be ...
>
> hint: Remove the reference to the pachage module that was not 
> hint: found and add `(use-package-modules virtualization)'.

... something like ... 

hint: Did you remove reference to package module that was not found?
hint: Did you forget `(use-package-modules virtualization)'?

... may be less confusing ...  I agree.  HTH - George