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Three long days
29 June 2006 21:39After three painful days of beating my head against the wall I have managed to establish that the OpenSSL implementation in the Windows distribution of Ruby 1.8.4 is completely broken. There are few technical problems more irritating to deal with than a failure in a tool because statistically speaking bugs are far more likely to be down to the programmer, especially when you're working with new tools.
I've rolled back to 1.8.2 and that seems to have done the trick- I still have loads of difficult stuff to do, but at least it's solvable problems now rather than totally impossible ones.
I've also come to the conclusion that there is no point trying to persist as a freelancer- I'm tired of scrabbling around desperately to have enough money to cover the mortgage each month, having to constantly sponge off Lou and never knowing when I'm going to get paid for the work I've already done. Having a bit of control over my own time is all well and good, but having enough money to be able to afford food or new clothes occasionally would be wonderful. Many of my reasons for persisting this long were to do with the band and the chances of that taking off, but in all honesty I don't think I serve them best by starving and not being able to afford to get to gigs, pay for rehearsal or get my round in.
Having made that decision I am feeling a lot happier about the world than I have in a while. I'm going to have a hell of a time finishing up my outstanding jobs, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel which is not necessarily a train.
I've rolled back to 1.8.2 and that seems to have done the trick- I still have loads of difficult stuff to do, but at least it's solvable problems now rather than totally impossible ones.
I've also come to the conclusion that there is no point trying to persist as a freelancer- I'm tired of scrabbling around desperately to have enough money to cover the mortgage each month, having to constantly sponge off Lou and never knowing when I'm going to get paid for the work I've already done. Having a bit of control over my own time is all well and good, but having enough money to be able to afford food or new clothes occasionally would be wonderful. Many of my reasons for persisting this long were to do with the band and the chances of that taking off, but in all honesty I don't think I serve them best by starving and not being able to afford to get to gigs, pay for rehearsal or get my round in.
Having made that decision I am feeling a lot happier about the world than I have in a while. I'm going to have a hell of a time finishing up my outstanding jobs, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel which is not necessarily a train.
