Re: RFC: error codes on exit

From: Alex Henrie <alexhenrie24@gmail.com>
Date: May 25, 2021, 17:24 UTC
Message-ID: <CAMMLpeR5S3Ps4C2V4QuTxrCRB_iRsUKyCNOJ4G7Fy7jGe98ZbA@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <60a97550287b3_857e9208b8@natae.notmuch>

On Sat, May 22, 2021 at 3:19 PM Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 23 quoted lines

>
> Philip Oakley wrote:
> > On 21/05/2021 17:53, Alex Henrie wrote:
> > > On Wed, May 19, 2021 at 6:40 PM Felipe Contreras
> > > <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> It's good to not include many initial codes, but I would start with at
> > >> least three:
> > >>
> > >>   OK = 0,
> > >>   UNKNOWN = 1,
> > >>   NORMAL = 2,
> > > If you go that route, could you please pick a word other than "normal"
> > > to describe errors that are not entirely unexpected? I'm worried that
> > > someone will see "normal" and use it instead of "OK" to indicate
> > > success.
> > >
> > > -Alex
> > Typical <== Normal
> >
> > Though abnormal and atypical often have different implications ;-)
> > P.
>
> Or USUAL.

The words "typical" and "usual" have the same problem of making it sound like there was no error. I would suggest terms like "user error", "network error", etc. instead.

-Alex