One of the things I do not like about writing my own applications for one-time use is that one is never sure if everything will work correctly when the app is in its production use. Actually, it’s not a problem if I’m the only user, but when 40 high schoolers are counting on this thing to work smoothly as they text all day what they are doing – that gets scary.
So, at this point, I give a little prayer to the code-gods, hope that the code is simple enough to minimize the chance any problems, and try to imagine if I’ve tested all scenarios.
Of course, I’ve not tested all scenarios … What happens if two messages come in exactly at the same time? I expect the blog to work correctly, but my log file might be a bit confused – oops – unless the app fails to open a file already opened by another text processing process – hmmmm – that could mess up one of the texts … or maybe not … do I sweat it now, at this hour? …. nah … it’s not worth checking the code … one rule of thumb on development that I learned long ago: never make last minute changes.
You see? That’s what I hate about this. Sooner or later I always will imagine a feasible scenario where it won’t work. When I coded for a job, my wife Maria said that I would come home with my eyes wide open, processing the day’s coding tasks in the back of my mind, never fully present until several days of vacation had passed.
That’s a big reason I switched careers back to music …
Well, time to see if I can shut my eyes and get some sleep. I’ll know sooner or later if things work well enough. Until tomorrow!
