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Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2019 15:51:11 +0100
Message-ID: <CALKiJKpBsEErRAdDGAaBRscotMLajU-5rhQoEPMOK347=v9sPg@mail.gmail.com>
To: Lester Caine <lester@lsces.uk>
Cc: PHP internals <internals@lists.php.net>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="000000000000db34e3058b35a970"
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] The real world ...
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Collins)

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On Thu, 13 Jun 2019 at 14:46, Lester Caine <lester@lsces.uk> wrote:

> Had I HIDDEN the warning the client would just have
> ploughed on but now I can divert to fix the faulty bits of data and sort
> the problem! It will be some silly thing missed, but in 20+ years of
> code that are still a lot of those and simply hiding something and
> waiting until later to clear the problems created is never going to be
> right :(
>


Don't underestimate the ability of users to plough on in the face of the
most obvious errors (and then on another day stop dead given the tiniest
unexpected message).

In this case, you already did "wait until later" - you waited until the
client saw it, and had the time and inclination to mention it to you. There
are far better solutions out there, as others have mentioned, that make
sure *you* see the message in good time. Then you can call up the client
and say "don't use this screen I think it's corrupting the data", rather
than them calling you up after they've entered 1000 corrupted records.

A generic message on PHP's default 500 error in place of the notorious
white screen would probably be useful, but it should be limited to
something like:

> A system error has occurred.
> Please contact the site administrator.
> If you are the site administrator, please check your error logs for
details of the error.

Regards,
-- 
Rowan Collins
[IMSoP]

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