What I've always wanted is a unix command that would give me more info (user generated info) on the error that just happened in my shell.
Scenario: I'm compiling something on Leopard and it stops with an error. I type the command "wtf"
ERROR: compile quit because of this reason xxxxxxxxxx
> wtf
It automatically records the output of the error and saves it some web site's database. It can find others with the problem and open a browser to the discussion on that issue. Someone else probably already found a way around it or there's some library i'm missing and someone there has explained what it is.
The 'wtf' command would automatically do that "google search" for me and log my info to help others.
Heh, that's great to hear. This is exactly what we're trying to do with http://bug.gd and the error sharing database we launched last year. (Along with FF extensions and APIs this year.)
Our long-term plan is to integrate all over the place in software. For example, we have a proof of concept for this we announced at PyCon that does what you're describing inside the Python interactive interpreter:
http://blog.bug.gd/2008/03/29/error_help-for-python-hackers/
While we're excited from a business perspective for integrating into company's GUI apps, as hackers we're very excited about the potential here for completely changing the dynamic of the open source community.
Imagine if every new user, casual hacker, etc., trying out a new open source tool, could immediately get assistance whenever they ran into an error message. What may have taken 6 hours to get configured (and maybe stopped them) could now be a step-by-step "ah-ha" process for common scenarios.
That's precisely what we want to enable. In addition, most of the open source community doesn't even get very good feedback on how many people run into particular errors and give up entirely. This tool would give them the ability to see that, track errors, and put in their own solutions for when they find out people are running into those.
We have a lot of cool plans for this, and I absolutely love to read other people interested in this same endeavor. We're very keen on hearing more feedback on this.
Is this inspired at all by what Fred Brooks talks about in the Mythical man Month, where each run of a program had to be recorded, and was public within the project?
Scenario: I'm compiling something on Leopard and it stops with an error. I type the command "wtf"
ERROR: compile quit because of this reason xxxxxxxxxx
> wtf
It automatically records the output of the error and saves it some web site's database. It can find others with the problem and open a browser to the discussion on that issue. Someone else probably already found a way around it or there's some library i'm missing and someone there has explained what it is.
The 'wtf' command would automatically do that "google search" for me and log my info to help others.