[vincnetas]

Ok so first feedback. Launched app. Went to create a new table. Entered name : "users". Got error "Invalid name". Got confused, whats illegal about the name. After some time figured out that name must start with UPPER case latter.

This could have been the error message instead of generic "Invalid name".

[brktime]

True, this could be improved. Note though that if you hover over the text entry box, there is a tool tip that says this:

Name of the field. Must begin with an uppercase letter followed by further letters, digits or underscore characters. Non-ASCII letters like German umlauts are not allowed.

[cess11]

It's explained on page 8 of the manual, in the tutorial section.

[carlmr]

Exactly, it's a bad error message if you need to read 8 pages of tutorial to get that basic feedback.

[jfyi]

Let's take a look at how the big boys handle something similar...

SELECT * FROM logs WHERE KEY = 'blah' LIMIT 10;

/* SQL Error (1064): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near 'KEY = 'blah' LIMIT 10' at line 1 */

I think there is some expectation of technical literacy for the use of a database. This would include being able to familiarize yourself with naming conventions and keywords.

I have personally never seen a database that gives detailed error messages like was requested and I'd be excited to see an example.

[dvdkon]

Yes, the error messages of modern SQL databases suck. On that note, SQL itself sucks (the two problems might be related). But that's no excuse to not do better. Besides, BeeBase seems more user-focused than MariaDB, presenting itself as a nice GUI tool. "Real developers" might not need good error messages, but they also don't need a GUI and would sooner use some unholy bash-sed-awk-Perl mixture.

[jfyi]

Are you aware of non SQL databases that give detailed errors?

[dvdkon]

Fair point. Databases encoding queries in JSON get some error messages for free, at least when it comes to "syntax". But I think even others do well.

I just logged into Grafana and tried writing a simple query. Upon failing I got a reasonably detailed and specific error message: 'parse error: expected type range vector in call to function "rate", got instant vector'.

I also tried XQuery in Xidel and it gave me nicely descriptive responses to whichever mistakes I introduced.

[kazinator]

There is only so much room in one page of a tutorial; not everything can be on page 1.

[mynameisvlad]

Its OSS, you are free to change that if you don’t like it.

[PurpleRamen]

Comments like this are the reason why I will not touch software like this. I can live with the old school-style and the limited ability set sold on the webpage. But someone bringing up a legit complain and then receiving such hostile behavior, speaks for a toxic community or user hostile developers. And it's not limited to this one comment, but there are several collect here.

[AvieDeckard]

They simply said the information is in the manual, there was no hostile behavior. Please stop punching at shadows.

[zen928]

The replying comment side stepped the discussion of error messages lacking context that could be easily remedied to be identifiable and the response was "it's in the manual". All error messages meant to be understood by humans should be in the manual at minimum, but what the replyer suggested by ignoring the conversation was "your issue with the error message isn't important because you can figure it out yourself". It's dismissive to respond to nuanced articulated opinions made in good faith with simplistic matter-of-fact answers that don't address the problem, which could easily be seen as a form of hostility in a place meant for discussion and engagement.

You could argue that's not their intent or that it's the case of direct wording than intentionally being curt, but this is the second post in the chain that dismisses the legitimate discussion with additional redress to make sure you let the poster know that it's their problem "punching at shadows" and that their problems are imagined. What a shameful display of lacking empathy.

[cess11]

It's not important because there are many quirks to this software, including a Lisp-like programming language. Learning to use it involves internalising many things that aren't common knowledge, which one has to figure out by trial and error, and the manual.

If you are seriously interested in BeeBase you'll be spending hours learning the basics of the Lisp-dialect and GUI toolkit, getting a hangup on that error message means you don't have that kind of interest. Maybe the empathy got in the way of that, I don't know.

And let's say someone makes a patch that implements a new error message that specifies which of the two rules regarding table names has been breached, then what? More complaints about the next quirk? Some other error message? Begging for a Lua-implemented query language because parens lost the syntax wars of yesteryear, describing it as miserable that it isn't already integrated?

[wewtyflakes]

> And let's say someone makes a patch that implements a new error message that specifies which of the two rules regarding table names has been breached, then what? More complaints about the next quirk? Some other error message?

Yes, this is how software development is done, assuming you like your customers.

[mynameisvlad]

Yeah there’s a lot of people mistaking bluntness for hostility here.

And, at the end of the day, this is a free open source piece of software. The experience could be improved, definitely, but nobody owes it to anyone to do so and it’s important to remember that as well.

[kazinator]

It's a poor restriction. The table name I want is 収入. Now what?