7 August 2001


Last year: Of course - poor Matt - the longer I sit in our house looking at what we've got, the more ideas I have for changing everything. This morning I was thinking about paint.


I have a new toy. Go to MapQuest and enter an address. When the map appears, hit the "Aerial Photo" button. It's almost spooky.

I've been playing with it obsessively since Johanna showed it to me last night. It's utterly fascinating.

I spent most of yesterday waiting for Random to finish the piece of project he's working on so I can use it to test the last piece I'm responsible for. Finally, around 3:30, he got it - not finished, but close enough that I could start using it.

Naturally, there are problems, but I have yet to determine whether they're in my code or his. This is a painfully tedious process, because the steps involved in debugging this code are as follows:


- Fix any bugs that have been found, and put debugging messages in the code. Recompile.
- Get any new files from Mike across the network.
- Start up ActiveSync. Tell it to talk to the handheld.
- Tell the handheld to talk to ActiveSync.
- Hope like heck that the handheld and ActiveSync feel like shaking hands. The process takes a good three minutes.
- Take another two minutes to copy the new files over to the handheld.
- Process-kill ActiveSync (because the code we're testing won't run while ActiveSync is running, and there's no way to quit ActiveSync nicely).
- Wait about thirty seconds for the handheld to realize it's no longer talking to ActiveSync.
- Run the client program on the PC.
- Run the test program on the handheld. Make note of anything the debugging messages say. The test program halts, one way or another.
- Halt the client program on the PC.
- Look at the code and see if we can figure out why the debugging messages said what they did. This may involve changes to my code, Mike's code, or both. Go back to the first step.

It's astonishingly boring. Not to mention mildly frustrating. But I really have to be certain my code is correct before I leave today.

So you'll excuse me if I go now. My vacation starts tomorrow, so I'm not promising any entries between now and the 20th. But I'll try to write some - if not here, then to the mailing list. See ya!

--Liz

Word of the Day:
epigram - a concise, often satirical poem; a terse, sage, or witty saying
 
Currently Reading:
- nothing
 
Current Projects:
- drawing
- Hall stuff
- garden

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