[Waterluvian]

“Applied it when told to do so.”

This is my beginner-level experience with Rust. It’s amazing that the compiler can be so specific about what’s wrong. But taking the error and getting explanations that even I can understand has been tricky.

[estebank]

If you have thoughts on how to improve the output for better understanding, do file a ticket against rustc. We are space constrained, so we try to avoid long explanations as much as possible, but we sometimes do or add links to the right spot in the docs.

[Waterluvian]

Oh, I don’t have any criticism for the messages. It’s amazing that they can be so correct. And I’ve yet to find one I cannot quickly and accurately google. I’m criticizing my inability to convert them into knowledge vs just blindly doing what it’s telling me to do.

I would personally discourage trying to accomplish too much in the error messages. As long as they are a sufficient breadcrumb for what’s wrong, where, and enough key words to research, that seems ideal.

[estebank]

That is part of the strategy: remove jargon when possible, consciously feed jargon when unavoidable to introduce concepts and give something useful to search for.

[qup]

This is the kind of thing I like to ask GPT4. It can usually explain what's going on.

Asking different ways usually leads me to understanding it well.