miniblog.

Compiler error messages is such a deep topic. Even in rustc, a mature compiler that invests effort in diagnostic quality, I find interesting issues every few months. (The majority have been fixed pretty quickly, so it's really rewarding to file issues.)

Why do so few CLI tools use colour inside their error messages? For example, rustc uses colour well in the error display, but there's no special styling of the content in backticks. By contrast, markdown website almost always style backtick text differently from prose. E.g. `field` is not specially styled here.

TIL rustc has a style guide for suggestions! https://rustc-dev-guide.rust-lang.org/diagnostics.html#suggestion-style-guide They recommend avoiding 'did you mean' or 'the following' in favour of direct suggestions and highlighted positions.