Company
Date Published
Author
Gleb Bahmutov
Word count
1593
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

The text discusses the importance of providing meaningful and user-friendly error messages in software applications, emphasizing that good error messages are a hallmark of high-quality software. It highlights how Cypress, an end-to-end test runner, focuses on creating detailed error messages for both failed assertions and crashes to aid developers in diagnosing issues efficiently. The text contrasts traditional error messages, which can be vague and user-unfriendly, with better-designed messages that include detailed information about the test failure, such as in the case of using the chai library or Ava test runner for more informative outputs. Furthermore, it explores how server-side and CLI errors can be handled more effectively by providing users with actionable solutions instead of overwhelming them with stack traces. The article also introduces the @cypress/error-message package, which aims to offer user-friendly error descriptions and solutions while maintaining detailed error reporting for developers, ultimately advocating for a balance between technical verbosity and user accessibility in error messaging.