TABROOM
Had a short hiccup on Friday night; it was largely because I’d spun up extra capacity but the process of spinning it up didn’t quite finish, alas, for a really stupid reason. But fortunately it was also quick to fix; the process to get around the stupid reason was fast, and we were back after like 6-7 minutes. I can’t promise never to have issues, after all; nobody can in tech. But it’s nicely affirming when the problem is just a little turbulence instead of a full plane crash, especially when I recovered so fast as a direct consequence of some blood sweat & tears I’ve recently put in.
That brings me to a wider point about the rewriting process and the concept of a feature freeze. I’m trying to not code up new material in the old programming environment as much as possible, except for direct bug fixes and flaws, while I get the infrastructure rolling behind the new framework. However, to some degree that is impossible. Tabroom’s reality is constantly changing, because you all keep using it.
Even if I never add another feature and only fix bugs and errors, Tabroom must change, simply because the scale increases. We get more traffic year over year, more tournaments, more students, and every one of our end participants uses the tech more heavily too; we bring three devices per person to tournaments now. That growing load represents unavoidable change permanently baked into Tabroom, that will always demands a measure of attention. Software in active use can never be paused.
So after our fun times in November I combed through our records of moments the database locked up with heavy write traffic, and rewrote every page and query that featured there to avoid them. The big one was the pref entry screen. Did that cause our corrupted index? I’ll never know. But it will perhaps make them less likely in the future, and it will definitely make parts of the site run faster and better.
The expanded load also means the software is more unforgiving. Smaller mistakes become big problems. To a degree the expansion of Tabroom represents an expansion of the world of forensics. This is good! But it does demand I keep up with it, so I’ll never be able to entirely focus on the rewrite.
But all the same, I’ve made some good progress there. One big advantage of the new framework is it runs a lot faster on less powerful hardware. The other big win is that I’m a far better coder than I was twenty years ago; the code I put out after rewriting will be more robust and capable. I can already feel the system reaping the benefits of both of those things. I’m not traveling at all in December, either for myself or tournaments, after this weekend. I’m hoping I can use the stillness to hunker down and turn the corner; I’ve seen its edge, so we are perhaps near to seeing some reality there.
THE OTHERS AROUND
My sister got a new gig already after the old one had a round of layoffs; the new one seems much more comfortable and promising, though, so props to her for landing so quickly. I continue to have some pretty phenomenal nephews and nieces, as finding things they’ll like during my travels has confirmed for me. But then, I am somewhat biased.
JUST LITTLE OL’ ME
Welcome to the Holiday Season, such as it is. I confess a dearth of conventional Christmas spirit, and generally I try to avoid traditional observance of the holidays. For one, Christmas really my dad’s holiday; he always made it a big deal, and since we lost him some 13 or so years ago, his passion for the day adds a tang to the holiday that I find it better to avoid. Don’t take up smoking, kids.
And as it happens, December 25th is the least common birthday of the year, but it was still the birthday of Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Buffet, Sissy Spacek, Rickey Henderson, and your humble Tabroom programmer. I therefore prefer to spend the day away from indoor trees and too much rib roast. Instead I go off and find someplace quiet with more outdoor trees. It works for me.
My European Gallivant was lovely for the most part. I found Munich warm, comfortable and welcoming. Venice was fun as always especially for me having company there — I’ve never actually traveled with people in Europe before, and they spurred me into seeing and doing things I’d not usually find on my own, such as a performance of Verdi’s Otello at the iconic La Fenice opera house. I confess I’m not much of an opera person, despite loving classical music generally. But it was still great to go if only the once. And then I swung through Amsterdam for some time in coffee shops reading tech docs, rijsttafel, and cloudy skies.
I confess however that travel to Random European Cities has grown both easy for me, but also less interesting and exotic. I found myself walking around places feeling more at home, but less engaged by them as interesting in their own right as a result. I intend to focus my wanderings to more rural places and probably further afield in the days to come.