A DESCRIPTION OF THE REQUEST :
I tried to run a jar file and got this crash message: Exception in thread " main " java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: com/ka/excelcmp/ExcelCompare : Unsupported major.minor version 51.0.

  To an ordinary user, such a crash would directly lead to giving up.

Instead, the message should communicate the fact that I tried to run a program that required a version of Java that was incompatible because it was at least one major revision later than the version that is installed.

JUSTIFICATION :
This is an exception that is seen by end users and therefore it should tell them what they need to know, either in English or with a URL to a web page that explains the problem.

EXPECTED VERSUS ACTUAL BEHAVIOR :
EXPECTED -
Best would be for every exception message to include a URL to a page that first explains what it might mean to an end user, and then farther down the page explains what it might mean to a programmer, including a link to the exception in the API documentation.
ACTUAL -
 " Unsupported major.minor version 51.0 " , which is incomprehensible to an end user