Re:Best software error message ever
by staunch on Friday December 07, 2007 @11:11PM
(#87220)
It's a pathetic error message but it does make sense I think. The computar tried to boot a disk but it wasn't a (bootable) "system disk" or it is a system disk, but it's broken.
Re:Best software error message ever
by Goladus on Saturday December 08, 2007 @03:33PM
(#87328)
Specifically, it's pathetic because it's grammatically ambiguous and requires additional knowledge.
It could easily be parsed grammatically as, "There was an error on the non-system disk or the disk" which makes no sense. Even when you parse it the way it was intended, you need to know that the PC tried to boot from a disk drive in order to comprehend the message.
"The program 'apt-get' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing: apt-get install apt"
1) Doesn't make any sense.
2) Doesn't point to a solution.
3) Isn't really an error.
4) Completely prevents the computer from working.
5) Happened routinely--millions of times a day, I'm sure.
6) Seemed to infect pretty girls the most, allowing me to heroicly solve the problem (by ejecting the diskette from the drive during boot up.)
Good times.
It could easily be parsed grammatically as, "There was an error on the non-system disk or the disk" which makes no sense. Even when you parse it the way it was intended, you need to know that the PC tried to boot from a disk drive in order to comprehend the message.
Error: No keyboard detected. Press any key to continue.
"No keyboard present. Press F1 to continue or DEL to enter setup..."
In an early version of Linux I used to get "Mr. Potato Head is on the loose!" every once in a while...
How else could I explain my love of Gentoo? It's transparent in comparison.