[thelist] error messages (was: New select option)

Peter-Paul Koch gassinaumasis at hotmail.com
Wed Mar 26 13:12:45 CST 2003



>ppk,
>
> ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
> > From: Peter-Paul Koch
> >
> > As to the original problem, what kind of error does
> > Mozilla give? IE error messages are completely worthless
> > for trying to fix bugs.
> ><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
>
>something you and i will forever disagree on.

Oh? I didn't know we disagreed. May I ask for your arguments?

As to mine, there are two serious problems in IE's handling of JavaScript 
errors:

1) The line number is rarely connected to the actual number of the line the 
error occurs in. In addition, IE doesn't count .js files as separate files 
but instead gives the line number the line would have had if it were in the 
main HTML file (at least, I assume so, I didn't actually count lines). So 
usually it's hard to find the bit of script that causes the problem.

2) Even when having found the problematical line, IE is rarely clear about 
the problem. By far the most common error is 'Object expected'. The message 
doesn't say why the object is expected, or where, or anything else. I read 
the MS definition at

>http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/script56/html/js56jslrfjscripterrorstoc.asp

but oddly it only talks about toString(), not about the dozens of other 
instances of 'Object not found'. I rarely see the other error messages 
mentioned on the same page (except for the obvious syntax errors with ''s 
and )'s and so on).

Mozilla is always clear about what went wrong and where in the code it 
happened. To me, this means it has vastly superior error message handling 
and I always prefer to see Mozilla error messages.

Why do you disagree with the above?

--------------------------------------------------
ppk, freelance web developer
Interaction, copywriting, JavaScript, integration
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ppk/
Column "Keep it Simple": http://www.digital-web.com/columns/keepitsimple/
W3C DOM Compatibility Table, expanded & updated
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ppk/js/index.html?version5.html
--------------------------------------------------

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