De-Mystifying Error Messages

Have you ever come across an error message you've never seen before? What happens when you try to Google it? If you're like most people you probably end up with pages upon pages of results, many of which merely lead to a forum post asking the same question you have: What the heck does this mean?

Continuing our look at the Rails Rumble 2008 winners may lead you to better solution. Team GiraffeSoft, the winner in the Usefulness category, has come up with a great application called What Does this Error Mean?

The appplication does exactly what its name implies--tells you what your error message means. Simply paste the message into the search box, click on the "Find me some help" button and presto! You've found your answer. The site also offers a browse function so you can see what errors are popping up for other people, a link to the most popular error and solutions from other users.

What Does this Error Mean? certainly has the potential to save you time and frustration. It's new though, so it needs a larger user base to even out the solution to problem ratio. Why not sign up?