In some ways, error messages are like crutches for the users. Some of the badly written error messages makes sense to the author of the code but not to the user of the code. For instance, this helpful reply on SO actually made me chuckle when I first read it, since the implication was that the error message makes sense when you understand what is going on, whereas a good error message is supposed to work the other way around

https://stackoverflow.com/a/43180701