Dept of Utterly Useless Error Messages

[Aaron Konstam]

On Sun, 2007-04-29 at 19:50 -0600, David G. Miller wrote:
> Timothy Murphy <tim at birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie> wrote:
> 
> > When I run xpdf I get the message "Warning: Attempt to remove 
> > nonexistent passive grab". The program seems to run in spite of this. 
> > I googled for the message, with a number of hits, but none had any 
> > suggestion of a solution, or a cause. Developers who introduce warning 
> > messages like this should be sentenced to read the complete works of 
> > Kim Jong Il. 
> Oh, come on.  I remember a fellow getting the message "Error in source 
> deck." from a programming class way back when (?? ALGOL on in an IBM 
> System/370 ??).
> 
> Now that's a utterly useless error message.
> 
That is fascinating. How did you represent an up arrow in EBCDIC? Not to
mention the other non-EBCDIC symbols in Algol. Has anyone ever used a C
compiler on a 370. It is a riot.
--
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Whoever tells a lie cannot be pure in heart -- and only the pure in
heart can make a good soup. -- Ludwig Van Beethoven
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Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akonstam at sbcglobal.net