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Comment by grinich | Hacker News Reader

    Fatal error: Call to undefined function: query() 
    in /content/public_web_sites/www.inc.com/reflex
    /lib/dbi.class.php on line 152

Ouch. Here's a printer-friendly version with the full text.

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20091101/the-way-i-work-jason-fr...

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How high-traffic web sites still not obfuscate these errors, or even allow them to happen in the first place, is far beyond me.

What difference does it make? People are used to weird errors, so it doesn't scare away "normal people" anymore than a fail whale would. People trying to break the code are not aided much by one filename and line number, either.

It's annoying to look at, and I wouldn't do it... but it doesn't really matter.

It's just a show of a lack of professionalism. I view exposing low-level errors as akin to spelling mistakes, typos, poor photo work, and other symptoms that show the content producers just didn't take the extra step to differentiate from amateurs.

I hate to beat the cliche, but just one of the reasons I feel happy when using most of Apple's products: they just scream that even the details were very much thought about.

Except the time my iPhone went into Chinese-language panic mode and started warning me that something completely arcane was happening and would only shut down after I took out the SIM.

PS: No, the phone has never been jailbroken.

I wasn't aware that you could even take out the SIM without some serious physical hackery to get the case open.

that's what the mystery key is inside the packaging. you put that through the hole on the top by the headphone jack and out pops the sim card.

Or just drop the iPhone from 4+ feet. Works every time for me ;)

(Not that I want to do it..)

There's a removable SIM caddy at the top that can be popped open with a paperclip or a key included in the iPhone 3G packaging. It's the battery that can't be easily removed.

Oh, interesting, I did not know that. Thanks.

For the most part I agree, but giving out full path names definitely can make exploiting other holes easier.

It's about craftsmanship. It might not cause any harm, but an error message like that in this type of site just shows you don't care for your craft.

With a decent error page, you can at least give ordinary people a link back to the home page.

We know he certainly doesn't work in PHP, and makes sites that scale a bit better :)

Not working in PHP doesn't automatically makes sites scale better. Yahoo!, Facebook and more use PHP.

Totally true. Two totally separate points I meant. He doesn't work in PHP and (unlike the site that this was originally posted on) he makes stable/scalable sites :)

No doubt, PHP is faster than Ruby in many instances.

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