
Unix Error Messages (joke) - MrXOR
https://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/unix.errors.html
======
weinzierl
Not a joke because it is intentional but I always found ssh's answer to an
non-existent user hilarious:

    
    
        ssh user@host
        You don't exist, go away!
    

Raw material for further jokes:

    
    
        head -c4 AnyJava.class | xxd -p
        cafebabe
    

The more morbidly inclined AIX user might try this with tail on a coredump and
will find deadbeef.

~~~
yarosv
>ssh user@host >You don't exist, go away!

I have never seen that. I always get: "Permission denied" of some sort.

------
xixixao
How to avoid this in your software (applies to CLI but also messaging in
GUIs):

\- Always wrap input, code, strings in some delimeters.

\- Always specify the kind of a thing custom name refers to.

\- Follow standard prose writing rules, like ending sentences with a period.

So:

File named "God" does not exist.

Missing `)` character.

While I was writing this mods took the submission down?

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zatkin
How many of these actually output what they say they output when run on a
modern variant of UNIX?

~~~
segfaultbuserr
Almost none. Early Unix uses a rather informal style to report errors, like
those debug messages written by a casual programmer. Nowadays, at least the
GNU toolchain uses a more rigorous style to report errors formally. BSD's
messages are more concise, but still have more details.

e.g, compare

    
    
        %make love
        Make:  Don't know how to make love.  Stop.
    

and _(shell doesn 't matter here, GNU make matters)_

    
    
        sh-4.4$ make love
        make: *** No rule to make target 'love'.  Stop.
    

There's still a funny one, though. In the old Unix, we had

    
    
        % ar m God
        ar: God does not exist
    

But now,

    
    
        $ ar m God
        ar: creating God

~~~
est31
This still works:

    
    
        # whatis love
        love: nothing appropriate.

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koonsolo
Reminders of the following joke (the most geekiest joke I ever saw):

chown -R us ./base

------
rv-de
I accidentally gave

    
    
      $ ar m God
    

a try on bash:

    
    
      ar: creating God
    

That's at least more proactive compared to cshell's:

    
    
      ar: God does not exist

~~~
majewsky
That's got nothing to do with bash vs csh, just with ancient ar vs. current
ar. If you look in the pwd after your ar invocation, you will indeed see a
file named God, and you will feel a bit weary as you

    
    
      rm God

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dschuetz
There was a "being silly" package for error messages, I believe, but I can't
recall where exactly. While software usually offers a debug feature, I really
like the idea that software also can have a silly mode, or similar, like
Easter eggs which are triggered by a specific date. It takes away the
seriousness of using a computer and lightens up the mood. Also good for
motivation and morale.

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User23
There was an old CD player called workbone that contributed to similar humor

