On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 01:55:24PM +0200, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
we have all seen numerous questions from newbies like this:
On 17.06.2009, at 13:25, Bert Freudenberg wrote:
On 17.06.2009, at 12:56, Tim Patti wrote:
I'm getting a debug window with MessageNotUnderstood: UndefinedObject>>binary.
Which tells you that "fileHandle" is nil.
IMHO it would help if we special-cased the MNU text for a nil receiver. In that case, I propose the message should read
MessageNotUnderstood: receiver of "something" is nil
which might point beginners to the actual cause.
This certainly does provide a more informative message, and it is translated to the default language, which should be helpful. I wonder if someone with access to new users (a classroom perhaps) could try this out on some actual naive users and see how they react?
A possible down side is that the current message serves to reinforce the concept the everything is an object, even nil. This would be a jarring notion to someone raised on e.g. Java. It may be a good thing to let folks figure this out early, even if it does result in a few more newbie questions.
I personally like the proposed change, but I really don't know if it is a good thing or not. That's why I'm suggesting trying it out on a few test subjects to see the reaction.
Dave