On 11/11/2018 02:02 PM, David Malcolm wrote:
On Sun, 2018-11-11 at 11:01 -0700, Martin Sebor wrote:
On 11/10/2018 12:01 AM, Eric Gallager wrote:
On 11/9/18, David Malcolm <dmalc...@redhat.com> wrote:
This patch adds a fix-it hint to various pointer-vs-non-pointer
diagnostics, suggesting the addition of a leading '&' or '*'.
For example, note the ampersand fix-it hint in the following:
demo.c:5:22: error: invalid conversion from 'pthread_key_t' {aka
'unsigned
int'}
to 'pthread_key_t*' {aka 'unsigned int*'} [-fpermissive]
5 | pthread_key_create(key, NULL);
| ^~~
| |
| pthread_key_t {aka unsigned int}
| &
Having both the type and the fixit underneath the caret looks kind
of confusing
I agree it's rather subtle. Keeping the diagnostics separate from
the suggested fix should avoid the confusion.
FWIW, the fix-it hint is in a different color (assuming that gcc is
invoked in an environment that prints that...)
I figured it would be, but I'm still not sure it's good design
to be relying on color alone to distinguish between the problem
and the suggested fix. Especially when they are so close to one
another and the fix is just a single character with no obvious
relationship to the rest of the text on the screen. In other
warnings there's at least the "did you forget the '@'?" part
to give a clue, even though even there the connection between
the "did you forget" and the & several lines down wouldn't
necessarily be immediately apparent.
I'm not an expert on these things so I'm going strictly by
intuition and my personal bias. Are there any user interface
guidelines that you like to refer to that speak to this? (Other
than our own or the blog post you referenced in one of your posts.)
Back in my GUI days, I remember reading articles and even whole
books on how to design good interfaces, including layouts and
the use of color (e.g., for the color-blind). It seems like
there should be something relevant for the command line as well,
at least some basic principles that we could apply.
Martin
