I have made a decision. Having made friends with the internet again. (I had a long and protracted argument with it and decided that we ought to go our seperate ways for a while whilst I found out what the rest of the world was like.) My decision - to eat more cheese, if that was at all possible and to plan a new project out and do the whole thing in Perl. I have worked piecemeal on stuff and have several projects that have been done sort of half-heartedly in Perl or PHP or even ASP but they have all just sort of grown out of themselves rather than being crafted and started from the beginning without having the nagging feeling that I am doing it the wrong way or it was a Thursday at the time.
Its going to be the same sort of decision to do everything in Vi from a certain date and sticking to it however painful or tempting it was to go back to the way I was doing it before, which actually I can't remember. So this is it brothers and sisters its Perl or bust. Not sure what that means, but I have just spent two days having to sort something out in DOS which I think has finally pushed me over the edge into some semblance of sanity. What it has really done is made it as plain as the nose on my face that the only way to get something done is to set sensible goals and get them done. As I did not have a choice whether I could program in DOS or not I just got on with it.
I remember the Wrox press books had and still have (unless someone has stolen into my house and gone through all the books and removed them.) 'Just Do It' printed on pages in between chapters. I often talked to them and explained that I could not just do it as I did not know what I had to just do. Now I do understand the relevance. Thinking is not doing and neither is thinking necessarily learning in the same way that doing is not always thinking or learining. However they can be all three.
The thing about the last few months is that I have spent a long time saying to myself - I just need to learn a little more and I will be ready to do this or that. Where in fact waiting for the time when I have satisfied myself that I know enough is never going to happen. I just thought that I did not know enough. Well its obvious I do know enough so I am going to stop pissing about.
