RULES FOR SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS

1. mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on //fileserver/foo, missing codepage or other error
2. Never tell name or location of the file you couldn't open, or what access rights you're expecting
3. Make sure an error message does not mention a possible cause or solution
4. Ideally produce no error message at all
5. When installing or updating a file, do not tell name or location, "installed" or "updated" is enough info
6. Never check if called variables are actually set
7. Never validate input; you can always trust a user to pass the correct option, feel free to explode if user passes unexpected parameters.
8. Do not document
9. Make sure "progname -h" crashes or at least prints "ERROR"
10. Having a design is against the law
11. If you output an error message, make sure to use a text that will produce at least 1.000.000 google hits
12. Do not check preconditions, just lemming of the cliff and throw a useless error or dump a core
13. Never use or check return values, that makes it too easy to determine where something went wrong
14. Use bugzilla or broken mailinglist managers to effectively discourage users from reporting issues
15. There shall be only one error value, and that value shall be -1.
16. Magic numbers give your code amazing powers
17. Always blame the user, he should have known better
18. Never check for an error condition you don't know how to handle

• bayes: cannot open bayes databases /var/spool/MIMEDefang/.spamassassin/bayes_* R/W: lock failed: File exists
• [crit] (2)No such file or directory: mod_rewrite: could not init rewrite log lock in child
• Note: Cannot set tx queue length on : No such device (errno=19)
• ShellExecuteEx failed: Success
• The following packages have unmet dependencies: linux-image-2.6-686: Depends: linux-image-2.6.18-4-686 but it is not going to be installed
• # UNCOMMENT THIS LINE OUT.
• scp: No match.
• ldapmodify: GSSAPI Error: Miscellaneous failure (see text) (open(/tmp/krb5cc_0): No such file or directory)
• db_recover: PANIC: No such file or directory
• ber_get_next on fd 13 failed errno=0 (Undefined error: 0)
• convert: no decode delegate for this image format `19092008102.jpg'.
• ntpd[2600]: sendto: Invalid argument
• LWP failed with code[400] message[FTP return code 000]
• Error: Catastrophic Failure
• LDAP_UNDEFINED_TYPE ARRAY(0x8691c80): AttributeDescription contains inappropriate characters
• config: failed to parse line, skipping, in "(no file)": use_dcc 1
• radeon.o kernel module version is 8.59.2 but version 1.17.0 or newer is needed.
• PHP Warning: Unknown: failed to open stream: Operation not permitted in Unknown on line 0
• CODE:17 ERROR:userCertificate: requires ;binary transfer
• calendar_ical::exportVCal() unknown TZID='US/Eastern', defaulting to user timezone 'US/Eastern'!
• sda:<0>Uhhuh. NMI received for unknown reason 80 on CPU 0.
• Cannot stat /backups: Success
• PHP Warning: Unknown: Unable to include '' - request execution failed in Unknown on line 0
• [warn] (2)No such file or directory: Failed to enable the 'httpready' Accept Filter
• Could not access KVM kernel module: No such file or directory

Note to the google victims hoping to find answers here: you will find thousands more having the same problems with bad software.