So I didn’t blog yesterday, I’m so ashamed. I missed my first one since this whole thing started. I even blogged when I was home ill. It really wasn’t my fault, I got pulled into an emergency problem solving thing for a client’s website. Ok, so I didn’t start my blog first thing either. And I did have all day to get it done, so really, there’s no excuse except that I didn’t have anything to write about.

That seems to be a common theme these days - it’s getting harder and harder to think of blog worthy material. I was thinking about what I was going to write this morning while taking my shower. I was in the dark because something the night before had happened to my new lighting. And then a light went off, well, metaphorically. Tonight when I get home from work, I am going to have to troubleshoot my lighting set up. Basically, what I had to do was run a new switch off existing wiring, which in theory shouldn’t be that difficult, pigtail and go. But as I was thinking about what I was going to have to be doing, it reminded me of one of my favorite things to do at work: debug programming.

Now most programmers despise debugging. I really don’t like the fact that there was a problem to begin with, because I should be perfect 100% of the time (in my head). However, usually in a debugging or troubleshooting situation, I have the most fun, because I have to think of a solution to a random problem that only is seen in certain circumstances. Yesterday it was a problem with IE putting spaces in to a table where there shouldn’t be. After working on it for what seemed like forever, Mick and I joined together to form the mighty Voltron, defender of the universe. Actually, we just figured it out, but it sort of felt like I was as powerful as Voltron.

Usually with custom programming, there isn’t a standard module set up, so the debugging can be difficult, or glaringly easy. Sometimes you can pick it up right away, like a light switch circuit isn’t complete because the neutral wire came loose, or in code, the tag wasn’t closed. Other times, you have to hunt down the trail of what might be going off, and maybe find that you’ve missed a simple piece of punctuation, or your variable name isn’t spelled correctly, and sometimes it’s due to a quirk in a nonstandard nonsensical browser (like IE), but sometimes it’s the logic, and that’s usually painful.

When my dad was helping me with the bathroom lighting by diagramming it out, he said that it’s not unlike programming, how you have to plan out the logic of how the circuit is going to complete itself before running the wires, so you know what you’ll be working with. When it doesn’t work, sometimes you have to work back to the beginning, pulling out the wiring and start over again, fixing the logic. (Hopefully I won’t have to do that with the wiring at home).

In the end, when it’s all working properly, we are rewarded. It may not always be with a ‘wow that is so cool’ or ‘great job’ but it’s an internal reward, the ‘yeah, I did it,’ sort of thing that temporarily boosts your morale. Of course when you’re wiring, the finished product is a set of working lights, or an outlet, and you get a little satisfaction every time you flip the switch, so you do get the reward. In programming, the reward is getting to finish the rest of the project. “Form feet and legs; form arms and body; and I’ll form the head!”

Well, I’m sure everyone will be glad to hear that my bathroom renovation is down to the finishing touches. Half of the trim is up, it’s all been painted and it’s looking well. There are some trim pieces that need to go up yet, as well as decorations and a nice shower curtain, but the large part is complete. Check it out!

So that brings us up to the beginning of the work week which should hopefully end a few dangling projects. We have the custom programming project of the ordering system to be completed, as well as the smaller pieces of the DDA Pulse which is to be our headlining DDA APPS piece. At the moment I am pulling together the Intranet with the PowerPoint Generator, and trying to clean up some of the coldfusion code at the same time. It’s definitely not easy, but it will be well worth it to make the powerpoint system modular and able to be added simply to any project.

Since I have been working on the new YBML project, I haven’t been able to go to bed without thinking about it. The same exact thing happened to me a couple years ago when I made another large site that was code heavy, except that time I used PHP and this time I am using Coldfusion.

The various stuff that pollutes my mind when I am trying to get a good night’s rest ranges from thinking of what I have left to do on the site, to thinking of anything that I may have missed that could cause errors, to thinking if any new section of programming that was added would mess up something that was already working. I basically become a big ball of nerves. The worst situation for me would be having to leave work while in the middle of a portion of code that still isn’t working correctly. I haven’t run into this yet at work here, but I have on the last project. All I can do at night is keep running the code through my mind to try to think of the possible solutions and other things I may try the next day to fix it. I have actually come up with a solution one night that worked the next day, but it didn’t help me sleep that night because I wasn’t able to try it immediately to know if it would work.

So far, coding with Coldfusion here has been limited to forms and I have become very proficient with them. I can finish multiple in one day and the code doesn’t vary too much so I don’t have too many obstacles to face. This is great for me because I know that coding these forms won’t leave my stirring in my bed thinking of how to fix it. I think I have a problem resting when my mind knows that something I’m making isn’t finished.

Well, at least it is motivation to finish the site faster.