Web development is the kind of work that is often very satisfying as you type in your code and create something that is both beautiful and functional. Sometimes you think you’ve finished and then find a number of small improvements which are best worked in straightaway (also satisfying) and sometimes you make mistakes where you can quickly see what has gone wrong. Those aren’t as satisfying but at least you can see what needs to be done to get back on track.

The most frustrating kind of problems are the ones where you know things aren’t working right but it isn’t obvious why. I made an update on a live server on Friday night which didn’t go quite as planned. It didn’t bring the whole thing crashing down but I started seeing a message on the login screen that should only have turned up on a development system. I did some more work on Saturday morning and, although I did make some useful observations about other things to improve, I didn’t feel any closer to a solution. Truth be told, I had taken a worthwhile step forward and the note to self I wrote on Saturday gave me a way in this morning that wasn’t starting from scratch. However, it took the best part of two hours of further work to realise what the problem was and to get it fixed (a step I’d figured out to fix a problem on a similar system earlier in the week turned out to be responsible for the unhelpful signals I was getting back when applied on this other one).

I’m now back on the last few bits of tidying up, which will include improving the documentation for both systems. I can at least say that I’ve learned a fair bit through the process although it isn’t quite what I wanted to spend that time on. Still, learning is satisfying, so I think I’m back on track.