
I’ve never understood the mentality of offloading reading comprehension to others. Why do I bother to write clear error messages at all?
You’re not writing error messages for your users. You’re writing them for you. Most users, especially the higher up the chain you go, are not computer savvy in the least. In fact, they know maybe a handful of apps and only specific to what they need to use it for. They are absolutely terrified of anything that is not what they know, because they know that could mean their job if the problem is big enough (data loss, hacking, etc).
Hollywood has done a fantastic job of drilling that into the consumer. Just like every Hollywood movie always has that one squeaky computer nerd who can fix anything just by looking at the screen. Those nerds also terrify people because it reflects on how little those people know, and that’s always scary.
Long story short, write your logging for you; not them. If anything it makes you look like the hero every time. And Hollywood also taught us to adore our heroes.



















Do you hear yourself right now? That is the oldest, most snake-oil bullshit anybody could ever come up with. And here you are doubling down on it and acting like your so-called insider information makes you somehow wise and all-knowing.
Seriously, I want you to stand in front of the mirror and say what you said to yourself.
Go. Try it. Bet that won’t cost anybody their job.