A story of idiocy (that is a word, right?)If you have talked to me on AIM or MSN (or any other of my 5 thousand instant messaging accounts), you know that when I am working on a program that I get really P.O.ed really fast if something doesn't work the way I expect (or just doesn't work, for that matter).
To make a long story short (never mind that, after typing this I think that this ship has sailed), I was working a little on getting my Notepad clone (FastNote) working. The problem with me, is that I don't exactly pay attention to what I do. I will just screw with something until it works.
After it works I will tweak and perfect it. And another problem: I have this
extreme trouble with variables. Working with variables, making variables, spelling the word "variable"...
. I can't say why, it is just this weird problem.
Step 1:So I am messing around, editing this stupid line of code and getting nothing but error messages. I am googling and copying and pasting and (for some reason) trying to get VB 6.0 code to work in VB 9.0... (obviously, to no avail). Nothing is working. I just end up screaming (literally) at the computer screen (multiple times).
Step 2:I repeat this for about 2 hours...and then I realize my problem. And no, you won't believe how stupid it was. And no, it STILL did not fix my problem. But it got me farther than I was.
The problem: I didn't declare the freaking variable!!!
The new problem: I get an error saying that I cant put that declaration there (or some pointless reason). Because if I do at runtime the "variable may return a null value". But that was the problem- I WANTED a null value. The USER sets the value.
My logic: Now repeat steps 1 and 2. Maybe a few times, to make sure you get it wrong some more.
After several hours of confusion and yelling and IMing countless people for help (getting little done), I decided to take the code out. This is normal- SnapSuite has
tons of code that is dormant, converted to comments for future repair (*cough*
). But when I put the code up above the current lines, the error went away (bringing 3 new ones, but I knew what these meant). So I fixed those.
Now, I have this semi working, discombobulated...thing. And I keep getting errors. And I keep fixing them. And I end up with a whole new command...whatcha-mah-call-it. So get this (this
is what the final version does):
When you click in the box [FastNote's edit box], the program turns on the variable.
Then when you click save, it uses the variable. I don't know why this has to be this way, but it works and ... it works.
NOW, after 6 hours of working, yelling, and googling for stuff that doesn't help me, I have a semi-working
Save function for FastNote.
<end-of-TV-show/foreshadowing voice>
Problem is, what about opening?
</end-of-TV-show/foreshadowing voice>
-Brandon
