What,amp,#39,With,All,Those,Er computer What's With All Those Error Messages?

----------------------------------------------------------Permission is granted for the below article to forward,reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website,offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as longas no changes a Gone are those times when the companies and the organisations didn't need a hi-tech system to handle them. Owing to the considerable increase in the business sector and thus, an enormous increase in the complexity of the organisational struc

----------------------------------------------------------Permission is granted for the below article to forward,reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website,offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as longas no changes are made and the byline, copyright, and theresource box below is included. ----------------------------------------------------------What's With All Those Error Messages? By Stephen BucaroYour software application pops up an error message withsome cryptic message like "Unexpected Application Error","General Protection Fault" or "Illegal Operation". Youdon't have a clue as to what the message means. IllegalOperation! What did you do wrong?YOU didn't do anything wrong. Somewhere along the line aprogrammer did something wrong. In this article, I'm goingto give you some insight into those cryptic error messages.General Protection Fault (GPF)Each application running on your computer stakes out a4GB area of memory to park itself and all of it's data.All other applications (including other instances of thesame application) are forbidden from using that memoryarea. If an application tries to store something inanother applications memory area - BAM! General ProtectionFault!GPFs can be caused by the operating systems overcomplicatedmemory management scheme. To understand how complicatedthat scheme is, realize that your computer may not evenhave 4GB of memory and hard disk space combined, but youcan still run multiple applications that each think theyhave 4GB of memory to work with. That's real smoke andmirrors!As complicated as that scheme is, GPFs are rarely causedby the operating system. That's because every operatingsystem uses the same time tested and proven memorymanagement scheme. GPFs are usually caused by anapplication programmers coding error. Here are some otherpossible causes of GPFs.* Bad memory chip* Failing hard disk* Computer overheatingIllegal OperationThis error is not caused by an illegal operation by you.Your application tried to perform an illegal operation.One example of an illegal operation is "divide by zero".Enter a number in your calculator and then divide it byzero. Your calculator will display the message "Error".It's illegal to divide a number by zero.Somewhere in the applications sequence of operation, amathematical operation resulted in a value of zero. Theprogrammer didn't test for this before they used the numberas the divisor in another mathematical operation. Result,Illegal Operation!There are many other possible illegal operations. AnIllegal Operation error is almost always the result of aprogrammer's error.Unexpected Application Error (UAE)When a programmer creates the code for an application towrite to a file, they must first put code to "open" thefile. If an application tries to write to a file withoutopening it first, you get the message "UnexpectedApplication Error". There are many other possible UAEs.An UAE is almost always the result of a programmers error.One thing I've learned as a programmer is that users willalways find a way to break your program. A programmerdesigns the application to be used in a logical manner.Users never read the help file. They just start executingmenu selections in an irrational manner. The programcrashes.Let's make one thing clear. It is the programmers duty toanticipate every possible way that the user can operatethe application, and to code provisions to protect theprogram and the user from undesirable results. With alarge, powerful and complex application this requires anenormous amount of testing and debugging time.The concept of "beta" software (and most freeware andshareware) is to toss the application out to the publicand let them do the testing. For the application developer,this has advantages and disadvantages. Advantage: youget better testing and it's free. Disadvantage: The publicdoesn't understand "beta" software and the applicationmay get a bad reputation as being buggy.Nonsensical Error MessagesYou accidentally try to save a file to a drive thatdoesn't exist and you get the error message "Error, chooseanother color". Nonsense error messages result from theway error messages are coded into a program. For example,an application may have six different places in the codewhere it opens a file. The programmer can code the errormessage "File doesn't exist" six times, or the programmercan code a list containing all the error messages used inthe application and then reference the message in thatlist.The list may contain hundreds of messages. Now, whilecoding, the programmer needs another error message. Theprogrammer can add an accurate message to the list, orchoose to reference an existing message. The lazyprogrammer chooses to reference an existing message inthe list that only vaguely relates to the actual error.Next time your application pops up some cryptic errormessage, you now have some idea as to what the messagemeans. Most errors are not caused by something the userdid. They are caused by programmers mistakes. You also nowknow why you sometimes get nonsense error messages.----------------------------------------------------------Resource Box:Copyright(C)2003 Bucaro TecHelp. To learn how to maintainyour computer and use it more effectively to design a Website and make money on the Web visithttp://bucarotechelp.comTo subscribe to Bucaro TecHelp Newsletter Send a blankemail to mailto:bucarotechelp-subscribe@topica.com---------------------------------------------------------- Article Tags: Those Error, Error Messages, Error Message, Illegal Operation