I tried reddit for a while when CP went dark, but never joined...too many rabbit holes there! I have to admit that during the 10 or so months that CP was down I got a lot more work done!

I actually joined bluesky but lost interest after a few days.

I recently helped a customer move a self-hosted web application to a new server, also self-hosted. With a few tweaks, it was working but a couple of pages needed additional tweaking. A week later and we replaced 2 files. Suddenly, the app started crashing on those 2 pages only...all other pages worked flawlessly.

My first guess was incorrect...it was not a permissions issue. (30 minutes wasted)
My second guess was also incorrect...it was not a configuration issue. (20 minutes wasted)
My third guess was correct, but logically, it didn't make sense at the time, so I talked myself out of it.

Of course, there was only a generic 500 to start with, so walked a tech through enabling detailed errors.

We finally discovered that an include file used by 80% of the pages in the app, had somehow gone missing. The unchanged files apparently pulled it from cache while the changed files triggered a new request. Doh!

Confession: This is the last Classic ASP app I have running in the wild. It is down to 1 customer and not worth the effort of a rewrite. That said, it actually reminds me a lot of blazor, mixing tags and code. Also, it says alot that this app has mostly remained untouched for years, but still gets the job done. (earns money)

@code-witch Have you seen some of the old haunts that they've re-opened? Soap Box, Back Room, Clever Code...that last one sounds perfect! Good to see everyone is getting back! :)

Indeed! Great to be back! Congrats to the development team for getting a great developer resource back online! It has been missed.

No problems here, but been quite busy today so have only visited half-a-dozen times while waiting on builds/IIS Express launches. Seems normal...minus the ads which weirdly, I'm starting to miss...no revenue stream and it's just a matter of time. I understand your anxiety. :sigh:

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"

:thumbsup:Great post! Lots of great advice here! :)

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"

I watched a video posted here last week about SmallTalk/Squeak...interesting, but I don't have the time. Good luck! :)

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"

:thumbsup: I couldn't have said it better! :) I will certainly miss this place, specifically the lounge. I've been a solo dev mostly wfh over the last 20+ years. This is my only online timewaster 'haunt' or place where I might expect others to know what I'm ranting about...kinda like 'Cheers for Nerds'! I'd certainly be more productive if it went away. (trying to be positive) The sudden lack of adverts is probably a bad sign. :suss: FWIW, I'm not altogether opposed to a small monthly/annual membership fee. Just sayin'. :)

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"

One of my colleagues lives in Venice, FL and the other is in Orlando. The owner (Venice) escaped South to Islamorada and the other is expecting wind damage/power outage but they are boarded up and should be able to handle it. Looks like I get a day off tomorrow! Either that or I will be the only one answering my phone! :laugh:

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"

I've been a solo developer in a small company for almost 25 years and I've hardly ever worked from 'specs'. An exception was the last web application that just rolled out a few months ago where the customer provided spreadsheets (order sheets) and said 'Make it look like this.' They also provided sample invoices and reports. The project took around 9 months to 'complete' and so far (knock on wood) has been the best product rollout that I've ever been a part of. I attribute that mostly to the customer knowing exactly what they wanted and working from sample output/reports. We also had weekly teams meetings during development which I hated, but were essential. Typically, our customers/end users have very little input into our product's designs. For the most part, our products are very niche and everyone on the team has > 20 years experience working either directly or indirectly in that niche. Customers rely entirely on us to make something that works. If they come up with a good idea, we steal it then charge them for it! :laugh: For the most part, there are no specs...we just make it up as we go.

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"

FWIW, here's a link How to make a self extracting archive that runs your setup.exe with 7zip -sfx switch – Notes to self[^] I've used this method for over 12 years now. It's chained into my release tool and works well for me.

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"

I have a love/hate relationship with CSS. I love what it enables me to do (layout and styling), but I hate having to google the selectors/syntax when it gets complicated...however there's certainly no shortage of references to anything you need to do. As for html/css/javascript, I chose this combination recently to render scorecard style reports in a winforms project. Build a webpage bit by bit and throw it into a browser control...it takes me back to the late 90's when I was building webpages with classic asp! :laugh:

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"

At dinner on Friday night, Snoop Dogg's name was mentioned, then Willie Nelson, then Kris Kristofferson as an outlaw. I hadn't heard that name in years. :suss:

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"

honey the codewitch wrote:

At least from a quality standpoint

Dogfooding works! :thumbsup:

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"

I support the software I produce so it's personal. :)

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"

I am currently hosting my own website/email server through the broadband connection at my home/office. It requires a static IP address and periodic maintenance (certs), but it works great. We also have a site hosted at hostpapa and 2 sites running from Azure VMs.

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"

IMHO, the amount of $ spent on equipment is mostly related to the job(s) one is doing. Salary has nothing to do with it. FWIW, my average of the last 10 years is 1.2% of my salary on hardware.

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"

This album cover to cover...proof that not all new music is crap. 💀 THE NEAL MORSE BAND - INNOCENCE & DANGER ( Full Album ) (HQ) - YouTube[^] On another somewhat related note, does anyone else with xm/sirrius get annoyed with the repeats? It's as if they are working from a very limited list.

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"

I've got a stack going now...5 laptops and a scanner in my spare office chair. Two of those were started in the last 12 months. All are at least 9 y/o and running a mix of Win7 and 10. In the closet I have my very first laptop from '99. In my outdoor garage, I have my old TI/994a in the box...now if I just had a TV with a two-wire antennae hookup I could have some fun with BASIC! :laugh: Additionally, I have every tower PC I've ever owned and a few that weren't mine. I know I have a problem. :sigh:

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"

Throughout my 25 or so years of working with computers, I have only had one drive that failed to the point that I was unable to retrieve the data. That was the Seagate SATA data drive in my h/o server after only 3 years of duty. My bedroom is right across the hall from my office. I was awakened at 4:31 AM one dreadful morning by a strange repetitive clicking noise. :zzz: :omg: X| I replaced it with a SATA SSD and spent the next couple of days rebuilding the data from backups. (there was some permanent data loss and a lesson learned) In short, consider me jaded...I'll never buy another Seagate drive.

"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse "Hope is contagious"