should Compilers should be given personalities?

Eg...

Dave, on line 3, you forgot to include ; on the end.
Dave, on line 4, that's now how you do a correct for loop, fix it moron.

Obviously, how abusive the compiler gets depends on the programmer(s) :slight_smile: (why not, satnav's do it)

Most users probably would not appreciate funny error messages. When I'm developing things, I might put in funny messages, but by the time I submit the patches, I just call gcc_unreachable or fatal_insn_not_found. When I was working on the 88000 GCC port many years ago, there was some error condition that I was sure would never happen, but it potentially could have fired, so instead of the normal abort call (back before gcc_unreachable was added), I put out a message saying call Michael Meissner and gave my office extension. Well, I forgot about the error, and 2 years after I had left Data General for greener pastures, the error message finally fired, and the guy who replaced me asked me about it.

I do kind of miss GCC's invoking various Unix games if you used #pragma, before GCC started using pragmas itself.

The Apple MPW compiler in the past had some funny messages: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/91q3/cerrors.html. I worked on the PS/2 and PSP version of that compiler a few years ago, and frankly I don't remember any funny messages, so maybe they had been sanitized, or after programming in C for 30 years, I don't run into the situations where the funny error messages come up.

Here are some more: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1146014/funniest-or-strangest-compiler-error. There was an error message from a Fortran compiler many years ago that if you had too many errors, would say "Programming by Monte Carlo methods is not recommended" (Monte Carlo methods use random sampling, and the idea was the compiler thought you were just modifying characters with no real understanding of the language).

I present to you the "amalgam scene specification error", aka the .ass error:

Apparently Microsoft didn't think the error and accompanying picture were funny, so they patched it out after it hit the press.

My compiler hates me.

wizdum:
I present to you the "amalgam scene specification error", aka the .ass error:

.ass | Halo Alpha | Fandom

Apparently Microsoft didn't think the error and accompanying picture were funny, so they patched it out after it hit the press.

lol, what an ass!

I'd love to get some given grief from my compiler :slight_smile:

Abusive error messages are a phase that most programmers grow out of within their first year of programming...
(although, it can be a FUN phase...)

You're refering to abuse from Their programs, which yeah I got past that maybe... umm what year is this? 1995 learning GFA BASIC and Pascal at the same time, then I dabbled with C got a city and guilds certificate in that, very boring they had me write some code for a coffee maker? it was amazingly dull and boring.

back oh yeah, 1999 I found out about this new IDE called Delphi, drag and drop like VB but now in Pascal! whoooooo I still use it, it's perfect for knocking up quick easy power apps.

2 years ago probably I started looking at Arduino, but only had to program when I could not do it hardware side i just got a batch of PLL's...

edit... got dragged away, daughter was in pain with cramp had to call the doctor, then is she this is she that, any blood, temperature, i hate answering a million questions.

but, if Compilers had personalities, that would be so much fun, i'd laugh everytime it told me to fix something, i'd probably write MORE software :slight_smile:

retrolefty:
My compiler hates me.

So you are saying that when Richard Stallman started GCC project which had its first release in 1987, he knew somehow that there would be a programmer who goes by the handle 'retrolefty', and put in special code just to torment this particular person. And after control of GCC was moved to the GCC steering committee, all of us involved, keep this special code around just to make things difficult for you personally?

Somehow, even though I've been involved with the GCC project since 1988 (except for a small stint when I was working on other compilers), I seem to have missed out on this ultra-secret 'feature'. :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes:

MichaelMeissner:

retrolefty:
My compiler hates me.

So you are saying that when Richard Stallman started GCC project which had its first release in 1987, he knew somehow that there would be a programmer who goes by the handle 'retrolefty', and put in special code just to torment this particular person. And after control of GCC was moved to the GCC steering committee, all of us involved, keep this special code around just to make things difficult for you personally?

Somehow, even though I've been involved with the GCC project since 1988 (except for a small stint when I was working on other compilers), I seem to have missed out on this ultra-secret 'feature'. :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes:

Obfuscation.

MichaelMeissner:

retrolefty:
My compiler hates me.

So you are saying that when Richard Stallman started GCC project which had its first release in 1987, he knew somehow that there would be a programmer who goes by the handle 'retrolefty', and put in special code just to torment this particular person. And after control of GCC was moved to the GCC steering committee, all of us involved, keep this special code around just to make things difficult for you personally?

Somehow, even though I've been involved with the GCC project since 1988 (except for a small stint when I was working on other compilers), I seem to have missed out on this ultra-secret 'feature'. :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes: :roll_eyes:

Yep, it's my personal Conspiracy Theory and you are not going to simply brush it off without proof.

Lefty

retrolefty:
Yep, it's my personal Conspiracy Theory and you are not going to simply brush it off without proof.

And since I've been on GCC so long, presumably you would not believe any such 'proof' I could offer. :stuck_out_tongue:

Compiler given personalities? Great idea! As long as you can adjust it. I don't like how all compiler errors are so robot-like.

Compiler given personalities? Great idea!

gcc-> GPP
Bad idea - what do you do with a manically-depressed robot?
(H2G2 reference)