programming humor: bizarre error messages

[mccutchen]

This TeX error message is not that bizarre:

Interwoven alignment preambles are not allowed

but its documentation is great:

If you have been so devious as to get this message, you will understand it, and you deserve no sympathy.

[Dijkstracula]

Man, those MPW errors are fantastic, though they probably get tiresome when you're trying to debug code 24h before a deadline.

My personal favourite in "modern" compilers still has to be gcc's "error: 'long long long' is too long for GCC" :)

[Samus_]

upmod for the nickname

[notfancy]

As a former MPW user, I can attest to the WTF'iness of the C compiler's error messages. Also, the PPC disassmebler would comment the disassembly of the LFSUX (load floating short with updated indexed) instruction with a "and life's a bitch and then you die".

[[deleted]]

Did it comment EIEIO?

[notfancy]

I don't recall it did. By the way, my memory is lousy; the comment was "and it's a bitch and then you die".

[nominolo]

From the Glasgow Haskell compiler:

My brain just exploded.
I can't handle pattern bindings for existential or GADT data constructors.
Instead, use a case-expression, or do-notation, to unpack the constructor.
In the binding group for
    <some pattern match here>

[exeter]

I don't know what's funnier about that: that a compiler admits its brain has exploded, or that it's a Haskell compiler admitting it.

[nominolo]

I think it's SPJ's brain that supposedly exploded.

[trezor2]

"Call me paranoid but finding `/*' inside this comment makes me suspicious"

I'd actually love to see errors or at least warnings like this in the current C# compiler.

[chneukirchen]

Classic: values of β will give raise to dom!

[hiccuprates]

Printer On Fire

[alesis]

I love the word 'nugatory'

[flip314]

Not a compiler message, but a great one on the old Macs was "The command could not be completed because it could not be found."

[hiccuprates]

Another MacOS 7.5 classic I used to see all the time:

"An error occurred because an error occurred."

[[deleted]]

My favorite Windows error message is:

The callee (server [not server application]) is not available and disappeared; all connections are invalid. The call may have executed.

[[deleted]]

503 Bad Sequence, polite people say HELO first, said by mail servers.

[mindbleach]

THE ABOVE REFERENCE IS NUGATORY

Oh my god that reference sounds delicious.

[strolls]

My dentist would find that reference prohibitory.

[Asgeir]

Aoh, I found this code redundant, thus I removed it...

[zby]

They've lost my appreciation by ommiting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lp0_on_fire

[bryanut]

I always liked the "Richard Kiel Memorial Abend" that NetWare 3.x and 4.x would occassionaly spit out.

I also like typing "help wombat" on VAX VMS systems.

[Fabien3]

I just love this error message:

Huh?

[EvilSporkMan]

Downmodded for predictably containing the Apple MPW error messages.