this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2024
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Programming

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I prefer simplicity and using the first example but I'd be happy to hear other options. Here's a few examples:

HTTP/1.1 403 POST /endpoint
{ "message": "Unauthorized access" }
HTTP/1.1 403 POST /endpoint
Unauthorized access (no json)
HTTP/1.1 403 POST /endpoint
{ "error": "Unauthorized access" }
HTTP/1.1 403 POST /endpoint
{
  "code": "UNAUTHORIZED",
  "message": "Unauthorized access",
}
HTTP/1.1 200 (🤡) POST /endpoint
{
  "error": true,
  "message": "Unauthorized access",
}
HTTP/1.1 403 POST /endpoint
{
  "status": 403,
  "code": "UNAUTHORIZED",
  "message": "Unauthorized access",
}

Or your own example.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

To be fair if it's an exceptional error message (i.e. database timeout; not incorrect password) I don't think i18n matters that much. Most people will just be googling the error message anyway, and if not it should be rare enough that using Google translate isn't an issue.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

If anything i18n makes things way worse for everyone. Ever tried to diagnose a semi-obscure Windows or Android error on a non-English locale? Pretty sure that's one of the activities in the inner circles of Hell. Bonus points if the error message is obviously machine-translated and therefore semantically meaningless.

Unique error codes fix this if they remain visible to the user, which they usually don't because Mr Project Manager thinks it looks untidy.