23 December 2003

Bad compiler error messages suck

This one is from visual studio:

C:\home\mikal\webservice-statepersistance-xmlmagic\wwwroot\Service1.asmx.cs(329): ) expected

The problem?

[WebMethod]
public string RecordSave(string	instate)
{
	// TODO
}

Should have read:

[WebMethod]
public string RecordSave(string	instate)
{
	// TODO
	return "";
}

A more helpful error message would have saved me some significant time looking for orphan brackets.