Error messages, was IBM ROM BASIC or lack thereof

From: Sean 'Captain Napalm' Conner <spc_at_conman.org>
Date: Wed Oct 3 19:08:14 2001

It was thus said that the Great Tony Duell once stated:
>
> > It's not that they don't describe the real problem that annoys me most
> > it's messages like "File not found" with no indication of what file was
> > being looked for. An error message should dump all the (relevant)
> > information available at the point when the error was detected.
>
> Ah, but all that relevant information is part of the 'real problem'.
> 'File Not Found' doesn't describe the problem at all. 'Could not open
> FOO.DAT' is a lot more helpful.

  Sorry, but it's still not helpful. Could it not be opened because the
file doesn't exist? The volume it's on doesn't exist? Do I have
permissions to open the file? Is it locked by another application? Was
there a hardware fai~~~~~~~~~~~~[
NO CARRIER

OK
Received on Wed Oct 03 2001 - 19:08:14 BST