[petsc-dev] error messages

[Barry Smith]

On Feb 17, 2014, at 7:30 AM, Matthew Knepley <knepley at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 7:46 AM, Barry Smith <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> wrote:
> 
>    90 plus percent of PETSc users must view error messages as a “useless blob of gunk that merely tells you an error has occurred”.  How can we get them to understand that they contain useful information? Better formatting? Color?
> 
> There is a lot of ASCII noise around the message. Maybe we repeat the main error message above with
> nothing around it, and tell them to look below for more info?

    It is tricky to print the right information in the right place (like the stack). I like color but Jed and Satish frown on it.

   Barry

> 
>    Matt
>  
> 
>    Barry
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> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> What most experimenters take for granted before they begin their experiments is infinitely more interesting than any results to which their experiments lead.
> -- Norbert Wiener