Just Fucking Read the Error Message

The Opening Punch

You saw red text. Your brain shut off. You ran to Stack Overflow, Discord, your coworker, ChatGPT, anyone but yourself.

And the entire time, the answer was sitting right there. In the error message you didn't read.

The computer literally told you what went wrong. Line number included. File path included. Sometimes even a fucking suggestion on how to fix it. And you ignored all of it to ask "why isn't this working?"

That's not debugging. That's refusing to participate in your own profession.

The Lie You Tell Yourself

"Error messages are cryptic and unhelpful."

No. You are cryptic and unhelpful. The error message is doing its job. It's telling you exactly what happened. You're the one who glazed over after seeing "Error" and decided reading was too much work.

Modern error messages are not the segfaults of the 1970s. They come with:

• The exact file and line number
• The variable or function that failed
• The expected type vs. the actual type
• A stack trace showing how you got there
• Sometimes a link to the documentation
• Sometimes a literal "Did you mean X?" suggestion

And you still asked "what does this error mean?"

The error message is not the problem. Your attention span is.

The Reality Check

Here's what happens when you don't read the error:

• You waste your own time searching for answers that were already given to you
• You waste someone else's time when they ask "what's the error?" and you say "I don't know, something about null"
• You look incompetent when the answer was Cannot read property 'x' of undefined at line 47 and you spent an hour looking at line 200
• You develop a learned helplessness where every error feels impossible because you never actually tried to understand one

Senior developers aren't better at debugging because they're smarter. They're better because they actually read the damn error message before doing anything else.

The Example That Hurts

The error says:

TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'map')
    at UserList (UserList.jsx:15:23)
    at renderWithHooks (react-dom.development.js:14985:18)

What you did: Googled "React map undefined error" and spent 30 minutes reading about optional chaining, default props, and state management patterns.

What you should have done: Gone to UserList.jsx, line 15, column 23, and looked at what you were calling .map() on. Then traced back to where that variable came from. Total time: 2 minutes.

The error gave you the address. You chose to wander the neighborhood asking strangers for directions instead.

The Future You're Creating

Every time you skip reading the error, you reinforce the habit. You train yourself to panic instead of analyze. You become the developer who can't function without hand-holding.

And when you're on-call at 3 AM and production is down, there won't be a Stack Overflow thread for your specific combination of problems. There won't be a coworker awake to ask. There will just be you and the error message.

Will you read it then? Or will you freeze because you never learned how?

The Closing Hammer

Error messages exist to help you. They are the most honest feedback you will ever receive. They don't care about your feelings. They don't sugarcoat. They tell you exactly what went wrong.

All you have to do is read them.

So next time you see red text, stop. Read every word. Read the file path. Read the line number. Read the stack trace. Google the specific error text if you must, but only after you've actually read it.

Just fucking read the error message.