pinhole surgery!

it's amazing how small, almost insignificant details can be utterly important. And how even a scene from a 1954 Ealing comedy can, to this day, have such a massive impact on my working life.

Sir Lancelot Spratt completely owns "Doctor in the House", where he sends a gaggle of medical students into quivvers in a string of superb "teaching" scenes. this one, image it..

Patient lies in bed surrounded by students and mentor (Sir Lancelot), he asks one of the anatomical n00bs where one would make the incision when operating on the spleen (I think it was the speen, I was just a kid, and I haven't seen it again since). He hands the wannabe doctor a felt-tip pen.

The student sheepishly approaches the patient (who is quite awake!) and draws a tiny circle in the exact area of the spleen. Sir Lancelot pushes foward, shouting..

 "Pinhole Surgery!"

..grabs the pen and draws a massive circle encompassing all the major internal organs of the patient, who then faints. At least, that's how I remember it. And it's served me well enough in that form.

Right now I'm working on my comment script, "That Comment Thing", which rocks, yes, and I'm thinking about adding a live editing function, because I want it to be rigtheous, before I sell it to you. I spot the point at which my new code must insert..

And I make a comment (they are important, in six months time I'll come back to the program and go "PHP? WhaT?"). I mean "a programmers comment", some non-executable text within the script to let the reader know what the following, executable, stuff means. Like this..

// this protects your code..
if (@!$in_blogz) die("to err is human!");

don't let the fact I'm referring to my comment script introduce extra confusion. These are the comments behind the comments!

Before the programmers comment, I add ten new lines of space. After it, the same. I'll need space to work. I don't do pinhole surgery, you see.

Sometimes I'll be in the thick of things before I do see, the image conjures in my mind, (ah! the discomfort was the cramped in feeling!), and I'll add some space around what I'm doing, the work becomes instantly easier, like just emptying a cupboard out instead of rummaging, rummaging blindly around. I apply this almost everywhere.

I keep my dektop clear, for similar reasons. This applies to people, too, some folk tend to clutter the environment, make work difficult. Old, unworkable code. That "Made in Holland" shoe you got hanging up? Bin it!

Meanwhile; an image of astronaut Neil Armstrong receiving an early form of laser treatment to his left eye..



ho hum..

:o) The Writing Entity @ corz.org