[MPlayer-dev-eng] mms:// saying "Core dumped ;)"

[D Richard Felker III]

On Mon, Sep 20, 2004 at 12:40:11PM -0400, The Wanderer wrote:
> D Richard Felker III wrote:
> 
> >On Mon, Sep 20, 2004 at 04:21:44PM +0200, Arpi wrote:
> >
> >>Hi,
> 
> >>>maybe we could rename it to MSGTR_CoreDumpJoke so that people who
> >>> actually bother to read the source over this will have _some_
> >>>hope of figuring out that it was a joke... :)
> >>
> >>Or it's time to ask Diego to do some re-wording on that. For
> >>example: "Congratulations! The stream has been successfully saved
> >>for your entertrainment. Enjoy, and dont forget to donate!"
> >
> >no, i'm strongly in favor of keeping the message. we could just put a
> >filter rule on the mailing list to bounce mails containing the
> >string "Core dumped ;)" with a message: "you are stupid!"
> 
> ...
> 
> For what it's worth: I normally consider myself elitist, but I think
> this is rather excessive. MPlayer is *not* a program "for use only by
> the elite" - and since many non-elite people do have a problem with this
> (and indeed I myself would not have correctly interpreted the message if
> I hadn't seen it explained), insisting on keeping the misleading message
> just for its own sake amounts to setting up a barrier to use by anyone
> not In The Know.
> 
> I would support the suggested MSGTR_ name change, at a minimum; I don't
> mind the message itself in my own use, but I would also support changing
> it for reasons of clarity and user-friendliness. As things currently
> stand, this mesage is one of the very few parts of MPlayer which is
> *intentionally* very decidedly neither.

what could be friendlier than some humor? :))

seriously, this is not a matter of "elite" versus "non-elite". it's a
matter of common sense. having common sense does not make you elite.
when a program prints core dumped, WITH A SMILEY FACE AFTER IT, and
outputs a perfectly valid file, then anyone with the least bit of
sense will think "hey, nice joke, these guys have a sense of humor!"
it's not that confusing... mplayer has many much more serious cases of
"pointless message that looks like an error" to confuse users, which
should be fixed, but this is not one of them..

rich