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General Discussion

Posted by A X
A X
12,842 Points

Website(s) to Help New Students Learn about What Error Messages Mean

I struggle to understand error messages as frequently the error message has nothing to do with what's actually wrong: missing a bracket, not formatted correctly, etc. Is there a web resource intended for beginning programmers that shows error codes for various programming languages & pairs it with what these messages might mean and where to look for the actual source of the error message?
Thanks!

1 Answer

Liam English
Liam English
3,837 Points
Liam English
Liam English
3,837 Points

Not exactly what you are asking for, but the developer console built into browsers is very good for trouble shooting.

For example, pressing Ctrl + Shift + j in chrome automatically brings up the developer console. Any errors will be displayed, detailing the type of error as well as a link to the relevant line of code causing the problem, in the particular file the error appears.

A X
A X
12,842 Points

Hi Liam, I appreciate your mention of the console. I was looking for something that explained what the error messages mean. I went on a random website until I found a console error displaying: script.js:82 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'top' of undefined at script.js:82 at dispatch (jquery.js:4435) at r.handle (jquery.js:4121). No idea what this means or how to fix it if I was working on this website. So yes the console displays the error message, but doesn't give me an understanding of what the errors mean.