[hvocode]

I've had more than one intern or young engineer that I've had to teach to resist the urge to put witty comments and jokes in project docs, comments, or errors. Especially in error messages or things that can be exposed to users/customers. Even if it's an error you think only the dev team will see, you never know if it will make its way out to audiences you didn't intend. Somehow I doubt people faced with this error message really were amused by the reference to the old Amiga OS errors....

[marcosdumay]

I'd say that some safe joke on the end of your error message is perfectly fine, as long as you are perfectly clear where the problem is. Just be very sure not to unintentionally blame the user. It is fine even if the user won't get the joke.

Software is a highly personal and creative thing, it should have a personality. The everything gray enterprise spaces have gone too far already. Also, I really miss Linux yelling on panics.

Now, the same joke on a highly visible position or on the beginning of the message is harmful and will impede people from solving the problem.

[rantanplan]

> Software is a highly personal and creative thing, it should have a personality

Not it isn't and it shouldn't. The process of creating the software is; huge distinction.

The product of your efforts should not have a personality or feel personal, it should just work as intended. Software is hard as it is and we don't need to make it more whimsical. A little experience can teach us, that whether we like or not, it will ultimately exhibit its own whims anyway.

[manuelmoreale]

> The product of your efforts should not have a personality or feel personal, it should just work as intended.

Genuine question: why it can't have both? I know it's hard to convey tone on the web but I'm asking the question because I'm genuinely interested in knowing what you think.

I personally think you can create software the right way, ship something that works and still incorporate some personality and make it less boring. I don't see why the two can't live happily together.

[rantanplan]

Because we haven't solved the main problem yet, which is to create robust software that does exactly what's supposed to do, no more no less. We have opinions, we have some indications of what may improve software development, but we are far away from comparing software engineering with other engineering domains. And it's only logical, because compared to other disciplines, software engineering is in its first baby steps.

Imagine if construction/aviation/etc engineers wanted their building/bridge/airplane to be whimsical and have its own personality. Are you scared yet?

Imagine if your out-of-band(not in the initial requirements/spec) and whimsical software contribution was responsible for a bug that brought down an airplane, or killed a patient. How whimsical would you be then? Well at least you wouldn't feel bored at your day job right? Anyway, I think you get my point.

[marcosdumay]

> Imagine if construction/aviation/etc engineers wanted their building/bridge/airplane to be whimsical and have its own personality. Are you scared yet?

Are you aware that those things go through a design phase with the explicit objective of giving them a personality, right?

Mechanical engineers have an habit of breaking that personality due to their profession constraints, so most airplanes lose the original ones, but bridges usually are built just as intended.

Anyway, it's not like you can avoid giving your software a personality. You can't. What you can decide is if it will behave like a dull humorless thing, a holier than you all knowing braggart, or something people like having around. And yes, some software should have those two first options too, it depends on their application.

[rantanplan]

> Are you aware that those things go through a design phase with the explicit objective of giving them a personality, right?

Not really. I see quite the opposite; during the design phase the team sets the rules in order to guarantee consistency and cohesiveness and avoid any deviation from what has been agreed upon. This rules out personal or whimsical contributions, because by definition it would ruin the process.

> Anyway, it's not like you can avoid giving your software a personality. You can't.

I alluded to that, if you re-read my comment, but a software having its unintended whims, compared to intentionally trying to give it some "personality" is not the same thing at all.

[JadeNB]

> Somehow I doubt people faced with this error message really were amused by the reference to the old Amiga OS errors....

I'll bet whoever put that in there feels extra silly about misspelling "meditation", too.

[takeda]

It looks like the spelling was fixed a while ago, does that mean fastly is running an old version of varnish?

[rgj]

Fastly changed it on purpose so they could distinguish between error messages from their Varnish and error messages from an origin customer owned Varnish.

[mirker]

Show interns this story: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20201110-00/?p=10...

[totetsu]

https://theamigamuseum.com/amiga-kickstart-workbench-os/guru...