02.16.99
Fixes
Feb 16 Tue (01 AM)
Just when you think you’ve got it right…
I played with Bad-Seed.org again tonight, still trying to get the menu just right (which it isn’t even close, but it’s an interesting exercise to optimize something that’s flawed at it’s core) and I tried the Goodson Subscription/unsub/info form and it was broke. But it was only broke on the interface level… the actual command still got sent out to the list.
After an hour and half, I finally tracked it down to the Sendmail that I _had_ tested it against (on a Sun box) was different from the one on the Linux box the thing was running on presently. I simply don’t know how to hand code the proper RFC defined mail headers off the top of my head.
It’s the little things, really. This would have kept me up all night, if I didn’t get it fixed. I would have been worrying over all the people who thought their subscription to the list didn’t work, but all the while, they’re sending in the same commands, 4 and 5 at a time. But it’s fixed. For now.
Why the hell do I get so wrapped up in this? It’s not like my web pages provide some sort of IV drip for someone waiting for a transplant. They’re just scripts, right?
But I feel so responsible. Just like I feel for other parts of my life, which I have no control over. If the car breaks down, it’s my responsibility, if not my fault. I should have changed the oil, put in this fluid or tightened that bolt.
Of course, I have virtualy no idea how to actually fix a car, and only theoretical mental models of what it actually does. So if something goes wrong, it would be more likely to be due to general auto-ignorance rather than malicious neglect.
And yet the respondibility, the guilt, is there. It really is a driving force in my life. It’s some strange monster, green, scalled, and slimey, with dagger canines and yellow eyes. Boublous, overstuffed and heavy, it sits next to me, crawls on top of me, grabs my skin as it hefts its weight onto the top of my shoulders like a boy getting up on the shed in the backyard, standing tiptoe on a bucket.
It’s good and bad. It’s good in the energy and drive that it provides. It’s bad in the lack of control I have over it. Amy and I have talked about it extensively. It’s a real albatros at times. And it’s always there. Always.
I wish I could re-write that piece of code as easily as my Bad-Seed.org perl scripts.