This is web development

Yesterday: 50 minutes on a task I expected to take 5. Just trying to get a little detail to “take” — a piece of info in a server header, small but important. The wrong info is causing a disturbing problem. Just change the info? But doing so is a bit roundabout, trickier than it looks at first. So try something, and then check … is it right now? Nope, not yet. Change something else and check again … but still nope. Repeat 10 more times. 15. 20. Start to wonder, aloud, with a little more profanity each iteration, how something so seemingly straightforward can possibly turn out to be so stubborn. It makes no sense! Fume, try 10 more things — things that probably shouldn’t work — key presses getting stabbier as the minutes tick by. Start arguing out loud: “What the hell? I am not missing anything here. It’s right. I know it’s right. I has to be right! Why doesn’t that work? Gawd!” And then, eventually, finally, seemingly at random, there it is! That little scrap of metadata finally appears where it should, when it should. “There you are you piece of virtual ^#@*!! Gotcha!” Clean up. Re-check. Still good. Excellent! Phew! High-fives with myself. Take notes, just in case this comes up again someday. Check one more time, just in case. But, yes, it’s settled — the data is there. It’s there.

Today: It’s gone!

Developers should have support groups.