microsoft / microsoft/TypeScript

Feat: Non-Detail view for Error Messages

Open
#36,701 1 comment 1 reaction 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Needs Proposal Suggestion
Dominant language
Go
Stars
111k
Forks
14.3k
Avg merge
2d 4h
Merged PRs (30d)
132

Description

Suggestion

The following is a case where I'm missing a single field from an object:

Screen Shot 2020-02-08 at 6 08 45 PM Screen Shot 2020-02-08 at 6 08 57 PM Screen Shot 2020-02-08 at 6 09 02 PM

The amount of detail in this error message is very useful for extreme scenarios, but in a general day to day scenario, it's a bit overwhelming.

It would be really nice to have detailed messages like this hidden behind a "See More" item, and instead show the simplest form of the error. In this case the error could be

missing prop "fields" of type "object"

I don't need to know what the object type is, or what the parent type is. I can just get that error message later.

Use Cases

Almost 100% of the errors I get in TypeScript would be improved by this. It's very rare that I want to know all the information, and almost always that I just want a simple reminder of what tiny slip up it is.

Checklist

My suggestion meets these guidelines:

  • This wouldn't be a breaking change in existing TypeScript/JavaScript code
  • This wouldn't change the runtime behavior of existing JavaScript code
  • This could be implemented without emitting different JS based on the types of the expressions
  • This isn't a runtime feature (e.g. library functionality, non-ECMAScript syntax with JavaScript output, etc.)
  • This feature would agree with the rest of TypeScript's Design Goals.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing the issue's screenshots, proposed simplified message, and the TypeScript design goals linked in the checklist. The work is done when error messages can present a concise form while retaining the detailed information behind a "See More" item, without changing runtime behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript, typescript
Domain
compilers
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.