weird C-compiler error message

[Barry Shein]

)  guy at sun.UUCP writes
) ... if your users are aware that "compiler error" really means "bring this
) message, along with the source code, to your local support person", ...

)) tanner at ki4pv.UUCP (Tanner Andrews)
))I must take some exception to this.  Your local support person is too busy to
))tell 50 people that "compiler error: gork blunge snarf" means "formal not
))declared on argument list".

Well, you could always do what the RT11V2 Fortran did on a compiler
error: Print out an entire form to be filled out with questions,
dashed lines etc on the user's console (real useful on our TEK4010!)
with mailing instructions (no joke.)

The point is, a compiler bug is a compiler bug, if it knew it was
ill because of "formal not declared on argument list" I am sure the
compiler writer would have been glad to have included the error
message. More likely it just trapped a memory fault or something
disasterous like that regardless of what caused it, you're just
smarter than the compiler for the moment. Guy is right.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University