--- In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, "Ann W. Harrison"
<aharrison@...> wrote:

>
> Smarts Broadcast Systems wrote:
> >
> > 1). I take it that's the origin of the 'g' prefix to commands such as
> > ``gbak'', ``gstat'' and so on. Correct?
>
> Right. The original utilities had more basic names like "burp"
> for "backup and restore program", "dudley" for ddl interpretation...

[...]

Very interesting, Ann. Thanks for the prompt reply.

> > 5). What's the background for lengthy error strings such as
> > ``Unsuccessful execution caused by a system error that precludes
> > successful execution of subsequent statements''. Was this a DEC-ism?
> > (I contrast this with the terse error strings in a *nix culture).
>
> Message strings seemed like a better idea than 10054 or 103. The
> internal name for that is BUGCHECK, which was a clean-up of the
> original RDB$OH_SHIT.

Let me clarify in this followup query. I'm referring to the verbosity
of the error messages, which have an almost OS/2-like flavor. Given
the above example, what was the motive for the rather wordy phrasing
as opposed to a succinct phrasing such as: ``Execution failed due to
system error''.