28 March 2012

If you were to wander into my office this afternoon…

Posted by Jessica Ball

…this is the scene you’d see playing out.

Me: Okay, I need to change this bit of code to get the program to do this, so let’s make one edit here and…

Fancy Numerical Model: (CRASH)

Me: Oops, if I change that I have to adjust this other input file. So let’s make that change and…

FNM: (CRASH)

Me: Okay, I’ve got it. If I change that variable then I have to adjust this other macro. This will definitely work now.

FNM: (CRASH)

Me: All right, let’s look at the error file and see what’s going on. It should say something useful.

Error file: (BLANK)

Me: Okay, I’ll just run it step-by-step in command line instead of using the executable. Then I can see what’s going on.

Command line screen: TIMESTEP ERROR

Me: It’s always the timestep thing, isn’t it. I can fix this. I can fix this. Easy change, right?

Command line screen: (INCOMPREHENSIBLE GIBBERISH)

Me: (INCOMPREHENSIBLE SWEARING, SOUND OF HEAD IMPACTING THE DESK)

This.

This is about the point when I start to question my sanity in embarking on a project that requires me to deal with code instead of rocks.