28/05/2003-29/05/2003 @02:00:59 ^03:24:22

Well, there you go. I've uploaded an entry that I wrote on Monday, finally. It's just below this one.

It's taken so long to get in because, after I uploaded Sunday's entry, Simon upgraded perl on the server. Suddenly DB_File wasn't linked against libdb2 any more, it was linked against the binary incompatible libdb4. So my update script could no longer do anything with the database file...

This shouldn't be a problem - there are programs to upgrade your database files - but the PHP installation on the server is linked against libdb2 and only libdb2. I tried upgrading the database and my site broke, it couldn't read any entries any more and the archive index generator went crazy...

Various solutions were considered. The most interesting was the idea to screw about with the mysql server, but, as I suspected, I found that I didn't have an account on it. Unable to create any databases and unwilling to wait for Simon to get enough spare time to administrate (never mind the fact that all the database stuff in my site code that would need rewriting) I gave up on that one.

I tried to use the old DB_File from perl 5.6.1 at home. I copied it over, and put a line in the script to add the path to @INC so perl could find it. But it didn't work. It was incompatible with the perl 5.8 binary and wouldn't link with it.

I nearly gave up at this point, but instead I fetched the source for DB_File off CPAN. For some reason, the server has the libdb2 development package, with the various header files, installed, so I could just build it against libdb2 and perl 5.8. This worked fine, so I can update my site again! I bet you're so bloody glad of that.

I would like to take this opportunity to say that for the most part I'm not angry at anyone except myself. It's merely so bad at the moment that I seem to be unable to avoid taking it out on everyone; in particular, those closest to the source of the problem, as it were. Sorry if you thought otherwise, and sorry if you feel victimised.

I realise I'm not making it any better for myself by being this way, but I am under seige from more negative emotions than my tortured mind can handle. It's more than enough ammunition for the large part of my brain that hates me to do some serious damage, the rest being too weak and shrivelled to resist.

However, sometimes people say things related to the situation that particularly hurt, and at those times I guess I am upset with them. I suppose some of these are merely innocuous remarks, but nevertheless. I shall refrain from posting examples. I should probably go away until everyone stops talking about it but that's difficult knowing only one set of people and being too shy to go and find any others.

This has been another cryptic remark from the people who brought you the The Analogy Of The Shared Box Of Christmas Crackers.