I have an son 19 months old. He wears white converse lo-tops, each one smaller than a computer mouse. My other baby is a rails app I've just started working on. It is 8 days old today! This little rails app has reached an important milestone. It is live! Deployed! It's like a toddler taking its first steps.
Me: "The internet is a big place baby!"
It: "Gaaaaaa!"
Me: "I don't quite understand."
It: "Gaaa Gaaaa Ga!"
Me: "One second. I'll take a look at the logs... Oh Yuck! Your diaper is full of XML!"
It: *crying*
Integration. Growing pains. You've been there. My little baby integrates with Adobe Indesign CS4 server. And boy, what a piece of junk it is. If you look closely at the words "Indesign Server" you can see that "Server" has been stuck on with a wad of chewing gum and a roll of tape. Integration is done through a little soap interface that doesn't really understand soap. The ruby gem savon couldn't get a message through. I nearly lost my cool. Just as I was about to get out my blowtorch and a troop of monkey patches I had a brainwave. The API only specifies one command, "runScript". Why do I need a soap library for an API with just one command? I don't! I simply created a template from the sample soap request supplied by their instructional PDF. Then I threw in a bit of string interpolation and presto! Soap without all the horrible boiling chemicals, lye and fat. (BTW, Sorry for the lousy baby metaphor. But not for the XML thing. I really feel the same about poopy diapers as I doo about XML.)
No comments:
Post a Comment