If someone quits programming because they see an error message they don't understand, it may be that programming isn't there bag.
The existance of unhelpful error messages isn't a meaningful way to find out if programming is right for you. It's just an arbitrary barrier to entry.
Programming languages aren't hard because programmers are elitist
The elitism isn't in making programming languages hard. The elitism is in the act of saying it's fine that they're hard and that beginners should just deal with it or get out. I don't agree with that.
So I agree with what you're saying now: unhelpful error messages are bad. I think Python's syntax errors don't qualify, however. In addition to printing the text you gave, SyntaxError: invalid syntax, they also display the line and indicate to token at which the parser detected the error. I don't know what more you could ask for in the case of a syntax error. Of course, linters can sometimes use more robust static analysis to provide a more specific error messages, like "unmatched parenthesis", but that kind of analysis is non-trivial to implement, if I understand correctly--I've implemented some simple parsers, but never a complete static analysis tool.
The only so-called problem I can see is that the word "syntax" is sort of a jargon term--but even then, that's what it's called. Programmers have to learn new terms and concepts and if the instructional material doesn't prepare them to encounter syntax error messages, that's a failure of instruction, not language tooling.
But I agree, in principle, that error messages should be as helpful as possible given the constraints of the compiler/runtime to diagnose and accurately report the problem. If the compiler/runtime. The programmer should be given the best information available with in the form of a precise, readable message.
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The existance of unhelpful error messages isn't a meaningful way to find out if programming is right for you. It's just an arbitrary barrier to entry.
The elitism isn't in making programming languages hard. The elitism is in the act of saying it's fine that they're hard and that beginners should just deal with it or get out. I don't agree with that.
So I agree with what you're saying now: unhelpful error messages are bad. I think Python's syntax errors don't qualify, however. In addition to printing the text you gave,
SyntaxError: invalid syntax, they also display the line and indicate to token at which the parser detected the error. I don't know what more you could ask for in the case of a syntax error. Of course, linters can sometimes use more robust static analysis to provide a more specific error messages, like "unmatched parenthesis", but that kind of analysis is non-trivial to implement, if I understand correctly--I've implemented some simple parsers, but never a complete static analysis tool.The only so-called problem I can see is that the word "syntax" is sort of a jargon term--but even then, that's what it's called. Programmers have to learn new terms and concepts and if the instructional material doesn't prepare them to encounter syntax error messages, that's a failure of instruction, not language tooling.
But I agree, in principle, that error messages should be as helpful as possible given the constraints of the compiler/runtime to diagnose and accurately report the problem. If the compiler/runtime. The programmer should be given the best information available with in the form of a precise, readable message.