[khooke]

Side comment: most new developers tend to ignore/not read compile or runtime error messages and ask for help before even realizing the cause of the problem they're trying to fix is right there in front of them. Better error messages for 'beginners' has questionable benefits for developers just getting started, until they get to the point where they realize error messages are actually useful

[oblio]

There are two kinds of new developers:

a) new developers in general (totally new to programming)

b) developers new to this specific programming language

I'd be curious what the percentages are, but my personal hunch is that for any specific language there are more in category b) than a).

And for category b), those are definitely helped by error messages.