[Info-vax] Unexpected error using ZIP for OpenVMS

[AEF]

On Dec 24, 9:19 am, Steven Schweda <sms.antin... at gmail.com> wrote:
> > OK, you're using "unexpected" to mean "very unlikely". Fair enough.
>
>    Actually, I was using "unexpected" to describe "something
> which a normal person would not reasonably expect", but this
> concept seems foreign to some of us.  But, as I said, I've
> grown tired of trying to explain this one.

OK.

>
> > But when you strand yourself by running out of gas, I don't think
> > you're going to say you expected it!
>
>    Wrong again.  I have been in a few situations where I
> either did or did not run out of fuel, but I had been
> watching the needle on the gauge bounce off the pin near "E"
> for a while, so, while I may have been disappointed, I was
> hardly surprised when the engine died.  (On one memorable
> occasion, at around 02:00, when I was getting pretty
> desperate in my search for an open gas station in the wilds
> of southern Minnesota, I was greatly relieved to spot an
> illuminated Standard station in the distance.  (It was a
> while ago.)  As I turned off the street into the station, I
> put in the clutch, and the engine died, but I was still
> rolling, and able to coast up to the pump.)

Good point. Touche', almost. Well, you probably were surprised that
the needle was getting near E. I assume you expected to have enough
gas to make it to your destination. So the fact that the needle
starting getting close to E would have been the surprise (unexpected),
but the consequence, running out of gas, would not, of course. Thus
the ultimate error here was expecting to have enough gas to make it to
your destination. The actual running out of gas merely an outcome, not
an error.

>
> > The ordinary user would be puzzled. This would be a puzzling error.
>
>    Perhaps because the error was unexpected.

Well, I don't see why that follows. Cannot a easy error be
"unexpected"?

> > When I encounter errors like this, I don't say to myself, "I wasn't
> > expecting that." I would instead say, "Why is this happening?"
>
>    Luckily, what you do or don't say to yourself in such a
> situation is not particularly relevant here.

Isn't "unexpected" a subjective term?

>
> > Also a puzzling error. First check the file. If the file is okay,
> > check the code.
>
>    An ordinary user might not expect to have to check the
> code.

Well, an ordinary use ought to expect to ask for help!

>
> > OK, the muon was an unexpected discovery. (At that time, Nobel
> > laureate I. I. Rabi famously quipped, "Who ordered that?") The
> > analogous case in programming would be finding that a program could do
> > something you weren't expecting it to!
>
>    How about finding that a program was unable to do
> something which you had (reasonably) assumed that it could
> do?  (To the extent that you had thought about it at all,
> that is.)  Like, say, Zip being unable to read a file with
> Record format: Stream or Stream_CR?  Some of us might call
> that an unexpected error.  As one of us did.  And he was
> generally (but, apparently, not universally) well understood.

I guess it's your point of view. I always expect errors. But then
there are "unexpected successes," in which I rejoice! Expect low, aim
high. Nothing is more disappointing than disappointment. Nothing
succeeds like success (my favorite description of "natural
selection").

AEF