Program Errors are being used as a Channel for Communication
July 13, 2004DataArt held a seminar on "Error Messaging as a Communication Channel." Errors occur due to peopleware, hardware failure, other running programs, and incorrect user handling. If there is a common language established between developers, errors can be used as communication devoted to nurturing user-developer and developer-program relationships.
One problem is making the complicated error message clear and more factual to everyone involved in the process. Other problems are the developer-program cooperation and error message simplification. Errors are usually a very unpleasant part of the developing process. So the challenge becomes finding a way to turn an error-induced temper into an effective process improvement tool.
All of these issues were discussed at the recent seminar lead by DataArt employee Kirill Lebedev. The conversation soon became a heated argument as project development leaders expressed their frustration over the error problem.
As a result, DataArt is providing a series of seminars and training sessions focused on error communication. Workflows, recommendations, and check-lists for working with error messages are also being developed.
