Summary: When a watched file fails to reload, the APM should throw the error to the developer rather than catch it and copy it to the error log.
Why: You have just edited a file to add some functionality, you go to the page, reload the file and the functionality doesn't work. Under the present system you need to decide if it failed because:
1) your solution to the problem was wrong
2) you made a typo in the page such as forgetting a }
Ruling out 2 requires switching to your display of the error log, and scrolling or searching back to the previous error. In sites that are logging every db transaction and have multiple background processes, it g n take some time to confirm that all the watched files reloaded correctly.
If we throw the error to the screen, the developer is instantanously notified, can switch back to the file just edited and fix the bug that broke the file.
Why Not: It breaks the entire site until the file is fixed, developers can't use the web interface to debug the problem or search for functions.
Rebuttal: Better to find out about it sooner. The worst case of having the file accidently propped to production and loaded on restart will break something and under much higher stress.
Its also unlikely that the web interface will be helpful in fixing the problem if its caused by a misplaced }.
Implementation:
I am not familiar enough with the APM to say exactly how to implement it. I don't imagine its more than a couple lines of code in the right file though.
Thank you,
Carl
