On 07/08/2023 08.41, Peter J. Holzer via Python-list wrote:
Mostly, error messages got a lot better in Python 3.10, but this one had
me scratching my head for a few minutes.
...
The error message is now a lot better, of course, but the fact that it
points at the expression *before* the error completely threw me. The
underlined expression is clearly not missing a comma, nor is there an
error before that. My real program was a bit longer of course, so I
checked the lines before that to see if I forgot to close any
parentheses. Took me some time to notice the missing comma *after* the
underlined expression.
Is this "clairvoyant" behaviour a side-effect of the new parser or was
that a deliberate decision?
Found myself chuckling at this - not to be unkind, but because can
easily imagine such confusion on my own part.
The issue of unhelpful error messages or information aimed at a similar
but different context, has been the story of our lives. Advice to
trainees has always been to cast-about looking for the error - rather
than taking the line-number as a precise location. Have made a note to
avoid advising folk to work 'backwards'!
Meantime (back at the ranch?), haven't experienced this. Using an IDE
means all such stuff is reported, as one types, through highlights and
squiggly lines (which should(?) be considered and cleared - before
pressing the GO-button).
In this case, the PyCharm* editor adds red-squiggles where the commas
should have been. Hovering the cursor over a squiggle, the IDE reports
"',' expected"! Its PythonConsole behaves similarly (without offering a
'hover'). Plus, even after the closing brace, it continues to assume a
multi-line compound-statement (and thus won't execute, per expected REPL
behavior).
Way-back (grey-beard time!) when we submitted card-decks of code to be
compiled over-night, one idea to avoid expensive, trivial errors/eras;
was that spelling-checkers should be built-in to compilers, eg to
auto-magically correct typos, eg
AFF 1 TO TOTAL
instead of:
ADD 1 TO TOTAL
These days, we can look at code from two or more years ago, 'produced'
by ChatGPT (et al), aka "The Stochastic Parrot". There is some thought
that artificial 'intelligence' will one-day be able to do the coding for
us/predict what is required/act as a crystal ball...
Speaking of which, and just because I could, here's what Chat-GPT had to
say when I asked "what's wrong with ...":
«The issue in the given Python code is that you're missing commas
between the key-value pairs in the dictionary. Commas are required to
separate different key-value pairs within a dictionary. Here's the
corrected version of the code:
...
»
Question: If a Chat-AI is built into the IDE (I stripped such out from
mine), does it take-over error reporting and diagnosis (and offer the
option of replacing with its 'corrected version'?) - rather than
requiring an extra copy-paste step, per above?
(and need for my assumption of where the error is located)
Hope you've exerted copyright over the "clairvoyant" description!
* JetBrains kindly sponsor our PUG with a monthly door-prize.
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Regards,
=dn
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