Don't update tired
January 21, 2021
When you're a team of one you always know who's to blame.
Don't update tired!
About a week ago, I managed to break the development version of Teddy Story rather comprehensively. I've updated the packages Teddy Story uses many times and was probably a bit less cautious than I should have been.
When the software starts reporting security vulnerabilities I get onto it as quickly as I can and upgrade the development site so I can start testing.
This time I only glanced at the version I was upgrading to, the current version is 2.29.something, and the new version looked like it was 2.31.something, which seemed fine. Unfortunately, I'd transposed some numbers, and it was really 2.13.something, a significant version downgrade rather than a minor version upgrade.
Oops.
That was not a fun week, attempting to fix the landslide of errors that waited for me each time I tinkered with some setting or other. After spending far too much time tinkering, I bit the bullet, pulled a clean version of the production code down, and started again.
What a difference sleep makes. It took me about 5 minutes to realise my mistake.
With a relatively minor time investment, I fixed the problem, found a way to isolate the security vulnerabilities, upgraded the software, and moved on.
This is not the first time I've done something like this, and I'm sure it won't be the last. When you're working on a project like Teddy Story on top of your day job, you just have to accept the risk that you will occasionally stuff up like this.
Developing a new story
I had an odd little idea for a character in a standalone story the other day. I quite liked it. It was a departure from the usual stories I tell. The characters lived and acted on a geological timeframe, but it seemed like a fun idea.
I played around with it in my head for a few days and bits started to solidify. This is usually a good sign, time to try it out on my test audience.
The test audience is an enthusiast, but the enthusiasm comes wrapped in opinions, strong opinions. As the storyteller, you have to be prepared for that.
So I told my story. It had solidified around a theme of change, how the characters respond to change, and the impacts of the decisions they have to make to adapt.
The test audience dutifully listened and emerged somewhere on the polite side of bored. Not too bad for the first telling of a story that was less developed than I thought and didn't really have a lot happening in it.
Suggestions on how I might make the test audience less bored were offered. Some of them were pretty good, I'll use those. Others might have to be saved for the 17 book series I've been voluntold to write on Bloodbath McWarrior and their murderous companion Mini-Gun Teddy.
I'll keep working on a peaceful story and maybe save BMcW and M-GT for a different website.
Have fun
Hailstorm