So, about this thing I called “misry”. Yeah, the name kinda gives it away, doesn’t it? It wasn’t supposed to be like that, not at all. I just wanted to get a little personal project done, something to make my life a bit easier, you know?
The Grand Idea (That Went Sideways)
It all kicked off one afternoon. I was fed up with this one repetitive task I had to do. Every single day, same old story: grab some files, rename them based on some weird logic, then move them somewhere else. Tedious stuff. So, I thought, “Hey, I can automate this! A quick script, in and out, problem solved.” That was the birth of “misry,” or at least the idea for it. The name was just a placeholder I typed in when I created the project folder, kinda stuck after things went south.
I grabbed my usual text editor, figured I’d use a language I was pretty comfortable with. Or so I believed at the time. Started hammering out the basic logic. Reading files, looping through them. Easy peasy, right? The first few bits of code came together nice and quick. I was feeling pretty good about myself, thinking, “This’ll be wrapped up by tonight.” Ha! Famous last words, as always.
Where Things Got… Complicated
Then the “what ifs” started creeping in. What if the source folder is empty? What if a file name doesn’t match the pattern I expect? What if the destination folder doesn’t exist, or I don’t have permission to write there? My “simple” script suddenly started needing all these checks and balances. It began to bloat, like it was eating too much and not exercising.
I remember wrestling with one particular part for ages – handling dates in file names. Sounds simple, but oh boy, the formats were all over the place. I’d fix it for one style, then another file with a slightly different date would break everything. I’d pull in some library I found online, supposed to make date handling a walk in the park. Spent half a day just trying to get that darn thing to install and work correctly. Then another day figuring out its documentation, which felt like it was written in ancient hieroglyphics.
My process was basically:
- Write a bit of code.
- Test it. It fails.
- Stare at the screen.
- Tweak the code.
- Test again. It fails in a new, exciting way!
- Repeat.
It felt like I was wading through mud. Every step was a struggle. That quick evening project? It stretched into a week, then two. I was spending my free time staring at error messages, feeling my brain turn to mush. That’s when “misry” really earned its name.
The So-Called “Solution” and What I Got From It
So, how did “misry” end up? Well, I did get something working. Eventually. After stripping out half the features I originally planned. It’s clunky. It only handles the most common scenarios. If anything slightly unusual happens, it just gives up, probably with some cryptic error I haven’t bothered to make user-friendly.
Did I automate my task? Kinda. Is it the elegant, slick solution I dreamed of? Absolutely not. It’s more like a patched-up old car that you pray starts every morning.
But hey, I definitely learned a few things. Mostly about my own tendency to underestimate how complex even “simple” things can get once you dive in. And that sometimes, just banging your head against a problem isn’t the best way to solve it. Taking a step back, maybe even ditching the whole approach and starting fresh, could have saved me a lot of grief.
I still have the “misry” code saved somewhere. Every now and then I think about revisiting it, cleaning it up, making it what it was supposed to be. Then I usually laugh and go do something else. Some battles, you just accept you didn’t quite win the way you wanted. And that’s okay, I guess. It’s all part of the practice, right?
