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Home/ Questions/Q 929059
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Editorial Team
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Editorial Team
Asked: May 15, 20262026-05-15T20:06:30+00:00 2026-05-15T20:06:30+00:00

Generally, in software design, which of the options below is preferred when there is

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Generally, in software design, which of the options below is preferred when there is a problem or error with a resource such as a database or file?

  1. Show an error message
  2. Do not show an error message and act as though the resource was empty (eg. do not populate a GUI component)]

For example, should the user see an empty DataGrid following which they complain, or should there be an error message? Which is better?

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  1. Editorial Team
    Editorial Team
    2026-05-15T20:06:31+00:00Added an answer on May 15, 2026 at 8:06 pm

    I don’t see this as an either/or. Also, we need to consider all “users” of the system.

    First consider the UI. Let’s consider a contrived general case: you are populating a UI by calling a service which in turn uses a couple of of databases (for example a “current data” and an “historic data”) database.

    There are at least these possibilities:

    • It all works, data is retrieved
    • It all works but as it happens there’s no data for this particular query
    • Can’t reach the service
    • Service is invoked, but one database is down
    • Service is invoked, but both databases are down

    Then also consider your application’s semantics. Can your applciation procede in a “degraded” mode if all the data cannot be retrieved? For example, we can’t query the history but that doesn’t stop us creating a new item.,

    Now also consider the roles here. There’s the person using the UI, there’s also support and maintenance people who need to know about and fix problems.

    My general rules:

    1. First Failure Data capture: Whichever component first detects an error should log it in some detail. So, service up, database down the service should log the problem. Service down, the UI should log the problem. This log should be a technical record targeting the support roles.
    2. UIs should be tolerant: if at all possible run in a degraded mode. So if the service is down but (for example) local working is possible put up an empty screen and continue. BUT …
    3. Always indicate a problem: The “no data for this query” and “databases unavailable” cases may both result in an empty screen. The user needs to know the status of the display, is it showing complete information, partial information (eg. because one DB is down) or is no information available (eg. service or both dbs down). So have a “Status” field somewhere on the screen. Giving messages such as

    Historica Data not currently available

    or

    There are problems retrieveing
    information, if these persist please
    contact support …

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