Sorry, I forgot the subject line! On Tue., 29 Nov. 2016, 3:58 pm victor rajewski, <askvic...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I teach a computing subject to high school students using Python as our > primary language. One thing that often causes confusion at the start is > error messages/exceptions. I think it would lower entry point quite a bit > by making error messages more readable to novices. Recent research found > reduced frequency of overall errors, errors per student, and repeated > errors when error messages were enhanced [1]. > > This could be implemented by a command-line switch when running python, or > a different python executable (along the lines of pythonw.exe vs > python.exe) such as python-easy. A simpler error message might get rid of > excess information which can confuse the novice (such info might be dumped > to a file to allow more advanced users to debug), provide a brief > description of what the error might mean, and/or how you might fix it. So a > SyntaxError might tell the user that they've probably forgotten a :, and a > NameError might say that the item has been defined yet, or they've made a > typo. A couple of examples follow: > > Traceback (most recent call last): > > File "foo.py", line 2, in <module> > > l[10]=14 > > IndexError: list assignment index out of range > > A better message might be: > > You tried to use l[10] when l is only 4 elements long. You can add items > to l using l.append(value), or check your index value to make sure that's > really the position you wanted to access. > > Traceback (most recent call last): > > File "foo.py", line 2, in <module> > > while name != "quit" and reponse != "quit": > > NameError: name 'reponse' is not defined > > A better message might be: > > You're trying to use the value of 'reponse', but that variable hasn't got > a value yet. You can give it a value earlier in the code, or it could be a > typo. You have a variable called 'response' - is that the one you meant? > > Traceback (most recent call last): > > File "foo.py", line 2, in <module> > > print(length(l)) > > NameError: name 'length' is not defined > > A better message might be: > > Python doesn't recognise the function "length". Did you mean len?' > > File "foo.py", line 2 > > for i in l > > ^ > > SyntaxError: invalid syntax > > A better message might be: > > You have a for loop without a : (colon). Try adding a colon at the end of > the line. > > > Any thoughts? > > [1]: http://researchrepository.ucd.ie/handle/10197/7583 > -- > > Victor Rajewski > _______________________________________________ > Python-ideas mailing list > Python-ideas@python.org > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-ideas > Code of Conduct: http://python.org/psf/codeofconduct/ -- Victor Rajewski
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