Compilers: What They Might Do

C-3PO, in the Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back, makes the statement: "Sir, I am fluent in six million forms of communication. This signal is not used by the Alliance. It could be an Imperial code." At times I think my compiler only communicates in "Imperial code".

I love my compiler, a Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express, but our relationship is tumultuous. Of course, it is not the compiler's fault but my own; I am sloppy at times or I fail to notice the small syntax flecks that will surely evolve into downhill snowballs-- but will not my compiler become enlightened enough to go the extra step and explain these errors to me in simpler terms? Seemingly not. My compiler, ever the vanguard against deviant coding, springs forth with its verdict-- error, error, error! It is sometimes disheartening that my trusted machine can not speak to me in a language that I understand.

I enter C++, it replies with a shout in Symglish (symbolized English); the scattered English nouns and verbs amongst the hexadecimal blurbs and references to what is happening in\ on the stack can instantiate a cognitive overflow in my forehead. Its difficult enough sometimes to fix the error when discovered and pointed out, never-the-less wade through an error output that looks as if it were downloaded from the mothership.

But I learn-- The compiler does now have to. Its education is left up to the programmers and designers that created this monster in the first place. I love my compiler, but sometimes I wish C-3PO was here by my side so he could interpret the error messages with me.