Ever get the developer's equivalent of writer's block?

[Donny Bahama]

I'm stuck.

I've been working on the same effin' page(s) for nearly a week now. I've scrapped it and started from scratch more than once. I've run into all kinds of weirdness and learned an awful lot (my php skills are on the low side of intermediate - but climbing rapidly!) but I'm no closer to being done and I'm about ready to scrap it all and start over one more time.

Anyone else ever dealt with this? Any general advice for me (before I have to replace an $800 picture window and a $1200 notebook computer?)

[Ryan Fait]

Yeah, happens to me. Commenting your code thoroughly helps me, though. I'm working on something I haven't looked at in 2 months right now, and if I hadn't of commented every block of code, I would've had to start over.

[Marc]

Ryan, i know this is a but of a stupid question...lol....but how do you comment out in XHTML??? ive tried "//" and "/*blah*/" but it does not work!

[Marc]

Dont worry, ive got it lol..... <!-- --> i knew it was somting like that but i was doing <-- -->

[Ryan Fait]

XHTML should never need commenting. It's content, not a program. It's bad for your code to content ratio anyway (e.g. it could hurt your search engine rankings)

[Marc]

nah, not that i am going to use it... but its good if people that dont know XHTML they can look at the comment then underneath there will be the code... that would be easier for them to find what's what.

[Donny Bahama]

Now THAT is impressive!!! I came back to read the replies and noticed that "notebook computer" (in my original post - the one I'm about to throw through a window) had become an advert link... I moused over it, and the ad was for a Panasonic Toughbook! "Tough. Durable. blah blah blah". That's some pretty amazing context-sensitive advertisement!

Thanks for the response, Ryan. My code is actually very well commented. I developed a system which serves for both commenting and debug output...

Code: Select all

$bdo=""; #Begin Debug Output
$edo="<br>"; #End Debug Ouptut
 
function foo($bar) {
   echo $bdo."   BEGIN FOO FUNCTION - PASSED PARM = ".$bar.$edo;
   if ($bar == 1) {
      echo $bdo."   BAR = 1 - DO THING 1 ".$edo;
   } elseif ($bar == 2) {
      echo $bdo."   BAR = 2 - DO THING 2 ".$edo;
   } else {
      echo $bdo."   BAR != 1 OR 2 - DO SOMETHING ELSE ".$edo; 
   }
etc.
etc.
}

When I don't want debug output, I do a global replace, setting "echo $bdo" with "#echo $bdo". Then it just serves as comment text.

All that said, it doesn't seem to be helping me that much at the moment.

Having slept on it, I think this is my next approach... I'm going to break the whole thing up into a bunch of tiny, highly specialized standalone pages, each of which works on it's own. Then I'll wite a page including all of those pages. Then I'll copy page content and replace include statements with that code.

Hope this works. I'm spending WAY too much time on this "Hello, World!" page!

[Donny Bahama]

Originally Posted by Ryan Fait

It's bad for your code to content ratio anyway (e.g. it could hurt your search engine rankings)

Only if you publish your code without stripping the comments first!

[masonbarge]

One thing I do sometimes is to pull out major code chunks and save them in a separate text file to isolate a specific functionality, then mix them back in. A tabbed text editor is a big help here.