And its not even a quantum physics program.

<mandatory lolcat picture>

Reminds me of those cases in C where calling perror after a successful system call would give me funny messages like "Error: Success". However, I've seen some "Error" dialogs with description "There is no error" somewhere...

danixdefcon5:

I've seen some "Error" dialogs with description "There is no error" somewhere...

If a program throws an exception in a forest but there is no one there to catch it, is there an error at all?

 No it causes the operating system to bitch at you*

*dependant on operating syste

"Error: The operation has completed successfully."
"Error: No error"

These errors generally occur because of Windows API functions failing to call SetLastError() before they fail. The program sees the generic error return value and (as per the docs) calls GetLastError() to find out what happened. If you're lucky, ERROR_SUCCESS is the last thing that was set there; otherwise you get some random bogus error that has nothing to do with what just went wrong.

TRWTF is the Windows API 

Kazan:

 No it causes the operating system to bitch at you*

 

*dependant on operating syste

What OS doesn't display an error when a program crashes? 

morbiuswilters:

What OS doesn't display an error when a program crashes? 

Windows 95. If a 16 bit program (like a delphi 1 app) crashed with a GPF in Win95, it would just lock up, the screen would go black and you would have to reboot.

 If you were lucky, the OS would start on reboot and not have to be repaired.

Oh, good times :-D 

Joon:

Windows 95. If a 16 bit program (like a delphi 1 app) crashed with a GPF in Win95, it would just lock up, the screen would go black and you would have to reboot.

If you were lucky, the OS would start on reboot and not have to be repaired.

 

Oh, good times :-D 

This thread is now about 14 year old OSes running 20 year old software.  Seriously, did you read the guy I was responding to?  He was complaining that the OS displayed an error message when a program crashed due to an unhandled exception.  It's balatantly stupid to expect a modern OS to do anything different.

morbiuswilters:

He was complaining that the OS displayed an error message when a program crashed due to an unhandled exception.  It's balatantly stupid to expect a modern OS to do anything different.

I don't know, I like that in my 'modern' (Ubuntu) Linux OS when I forget (or I am not sure if I need) to use sudo for a command it can generate some wild messages.

Because really, instead of just displaying "Permission failure" or "You need to be root" it is obviously much better to give errors like "Perhaps your kernel needs to be upgraded" or other such clever messages.

MasterPlanSoftware:

I don't know, I like that in my 'modern' (Ubuntu) Linux OS when I forget (or I am not sure if I need) to use sudo for a command it can generate some wild messages.

But...but...open source stuff *never* throws errors!  And if you argue I'll call you a M$ shill!

Off topic, have you tried Debian and if so how do you reckon it compares with Ubuntu?  I went straight to Debian and haven't been tempted to switch yet.  Surprising how intense the Debian/Ubuntu wars can be though, almost on a par with Apple/Linux/Windows.

upsidedowncreature:

MasterPlanSoftware:

I don't know, I like that in my 'modern' (Ubuntu) Linux OS when I forget (or I am not sure if I need) to use sudo for a command it can generate some wild messages.

 

But...but...open source stuff *never* throws errors!  And if you argue I'll call you a M$ shill!

Off topic, have you tried Debian and if so how do you reckon it compares with Ubuntu?  I went straight to Debian and haven't been tempted to switch yet.  Surprising how intense the Debian/Ubuntu wars can be though, almost on a par with Apple/Linux/Windows.

 Well, the problem stems from a few issues. First off, becoming a debian developer is a rather painful process (I'm currently going through it, and I haven't had a word in the four months since my application went in; this is actually quite normal, six months is the current average) and there is a lot of ego going around due to the general way things to, so Debian tends to be rather unchanging in its policies and such.

 Ubuntu on the other hand is much easier to get involved with; you don't actually have to physically drive (in my case anyway, across a state) to meet another developer and get your key signed just to help work on packages and then go through the Debian Maintainer process to get upload rights to your own packages.

 Debian's unstable archive is what is used as both the basis of the current Ubuntu version, and Debian testing, so all packages more or less come from a common source*. For Ubuntu, packages are directly synced, or if Ubuntu-specific patches are needed, merged. Since Ubuntu releases every six months, even their stable is more up to date then Debian's last release (etch, released almost a year ago).

 For Debian,  packages enter a testing distro, which is frozen for each release. The problem is that these releases can sometimes be years apart, and stable doesn't get to see any updated versions of software (the security team backfix any important security patches). Software can be submitted for update via proposed-updates, but more or less, software doesn't get updated until a new release of Debian is made, which happens every 1-2 years. 

* - Ubuntu also accepts packages directly via REVU. 

MasterPlanSoftware:

morbiuswilters:

He was complaining that the OS displayed an error message when a program crashed due to an unhandled exception.  It's balatantly stupid to expect a modern OS to do anything different.

 

I don't know, I like that in my 'modern' (Ubuntu) Linux OS when I forget (or I am not sure if I need) to use sudo for a command it can generate some wild messages.

Because really, instead of just displaying "Permission failure" or "You need to be root" it is obviously much better to give errors like "Perhaps your kernel needs to be upgraded" or other such clever messages.

Ubuntu.  Meh.  Linux in general.  Kernels are for popping.  Nothing more, nothing less. 

 You'd be interested to know that Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista are also powered by a kernel :-P.

What's wrong with Linux anyway?

Michael Casadevall:

What's wrong with Linux anyway?

All OSes have their issues.

mrprogguy:

Ubuntu.  Meh.  Linux in general.  Kernels are for popping.  Nothing more, nothing less. 

I suppose you would prefer an OS with no kernel then?

MasterPlanSoftware:

I suppose you would prefer an OS with no kernel then?

Every program is responsible for its own welfare. We don't need communist hippie things like common memory management, hardware I/O and similar un-American things. It's about freedom.

Wait, isn't that DOS?