My Apologies . . .

[Randy Walker]

The long story, why I'm so hard to help...
I started out on the little Timex Sinclair Z80 gadget that came with a basic interpreter and learned some very basic stuff about coding.
Later looking to move up. The Amiga was too pricey for me so I got the Atari 520 ST instead.
Sometime later I learned about GFA Basic, bought it and continued dabbling with code.
Next I moved onto an Intel 8088 PC again because 8086 were too pricey and again discovered GFA Basic was available to run on that PC so I got it and continued dabbling.
Longer story a bit shorter, I was later hired by a very small (Linux based) POS software company as a hardware tech to do installations and training.
After several years working as a support tech, being the extremely low budget company that they were, they used ordinary email as their support logging tool.
The log entries in these emails were all over the place except for one who had established a very consistent format for her emails.
I used her format to code a log entry form utility we could all use to create log entries that could be pasted into the email, hence the beginning of my logging tool.
Over a period of years it evolved into a stand alone that posted the logs onto a server where logs could be archived and shared by all who had my utility.
That evolved to include a customer database that could be used as a fully functional customer database including password manager and hotkey to do SSH SecureCRT sessions into the customers' stores for support.
Further evolution included a troubleshooting database.
Oh, and then came end of life for the 16 bit industry and I had to find a replacement for my GFA compiled Basic.
I found two contestants and PureBasic won out.
It took about a year for me to port my GFA code over to PureBasic and what a nighmare that was.
Many new innovations came along as a result of that migration, as well as headaches.
It's now reached a point where it is heavily relied on for every day interactions with the customers, so even though I am supposedly retired, I can't just ignore the company need for assistance when issues arise with my helpdesk utility.
And being the tool that it is to access so many POS restaurants around the world, I really cannot share my code with anyone outside of the company for help when things break from alleged Upgrades to the Windows OS or PureBasic.
My apologies to all that have tried to help me.
I can be a little dense.
Sorry about that.

[Fangbeast]

Why apologise??? I'm dumber that a sheep's asshole and old and ugly to boot so very hard to help.

But our fellow coders are all either, crazy, thick skinned goat lovers and love to help anyone or they love the challenge.

I think our industry is the only one where we all randomly help each other and think nothing of it.

Seriously impressed that I'm still alive after 23 years in the forum and anyone is still talking to me:):)

[normeus]

People will help you no matter what.
So far I know you are using ASCII and you are doing bit shifting.
Anyway I'll go back and take a look at your posts, there should be enough info there. I am more concerned about @Fangbeast's intimate knowledge of a sheep's rear?

Happy new year to all specially Fangbeast!!!!

[BarryG]

It's now reached a point where it is heavily relied on for every day interactions with the customers, so even though I am supposedly retired, I can't just ignore the company need for assistance when issues arise with my helpdesk utility.

My immediate thought is: are they actually paying you for your support during your retirement? If not, make them, and charge high! Don't work for no compensation during your later years. They're abusing you if they're not paying.

Also, not sure what you're aplogizing for? Did you do something to us? I haven't noticed anything.

[Randy Walker]

The company owes me thousands and thousands that I will never see, and that's another long story I wont get into. My loyalty stems from the allegiance of the POS customers that would suffer if the POS software company suffers.
I apologize for the trouble I invoke in others that I invite when I post my coding problems. Those who jump in and go above and beyond to assist me as normeus illustrates above.
People here are really really Great. Way better people than Trump.

[Randy Walker]

So far I know you are using ASCII and you are doing bit shifting.

So far I Don't even know why I'm doing bit shifting because I can't keep enough code in my head any more to understand what the hell I was doing when I wrote it so many years ago. Being ported from GFA to PB I'm sure helps to obscure the operations altogether. Not being able to revert to original GFA code for reference doesn't help either. All I can tell for sure is it is an integral part of a larger problem.

[PBJim]

The company owes me thousands and thousands that I will never see, and that's another long story I wont get into. My loyalty stems from the allegiance of the POS customers that would suffer if the POS software company suffers.

I've been familiar with that situation myself from time to time, having prioritised the interests of some legacy systems above the need for remuneration. I think it's a fairly understandable tendency — we want our art to continue in use.

I enjoy reading your posts Randy, without exception, please don't stop them. They are all reasonable and invaluable questions. For one thing, this forum would be downright tedious if all participants' level of knowledge was sky high, which it sometimes reads as though it is. PureBasic needs all users of differing backgrounds to be sustainable.

[Axolotl]

Hi Randy Walker!
I can only agree with the previous writers. But there is absolutely no reason to apologize.
We are all free here to decide whether to read a message, reply or help.
I like the diversity of people here and in the real world. So stay as you are, don't let it get you down and keep posting.

[Quin]

People here are really really Great. Way better people than Trump.

Good to see the surgery didn't remove the common sense part of your brain
Seconding everything that's been said here, I really don't mind seeing posts from you, maybe you can be slightly hard headed sometimes but we all can, I have seen far, far worse from way less kind people on forums. Don't worry about it at all, everyone here answers because they choose to, not because Fred's demanding it of us

[Randy Walker]

Thanks for that Quin. I feel a little bit better now.
I remember when my project was only about 1000 lines I could hold it all in my head. Now I'm doing good if I can hold 3 lines, so I guess that must have been buffer space that was lost in the surgery. Trying to troubleshoot working with that little feels like a monumental impossibility. One thing I've always been good at is is sticking to it until its done, whatever it is. That gives me some hope.

[BarryG]

I can't keep enough code in my head any more to understand what the hell I was doing when I wrote it so many years ago

As I'm getting older (I'm over 50 now) I've started to comment lots more of my code for this very reason. I know I can't simply rely on my memory anymore. Using long and descriptive variable names, and procedure names, helps immensely. It means I can read my old code and instantly know what it's doing instead of mentally decompiling it to re-understand it.

I never used to comment my code because no-one else was ever going to see it, but now I do it for myself.

[Quin]

Commenting code properly is an artform, one that I most certainly have not mastered yet. I've had to go relearn how thousands of lines work because they weren't commented. The lesson? Comment where necessary, and name your variables well. You in a month will have no idea what the hell "xip" means.

[AZJIO]

BarryG
I write down all the ideas at work in a paper notebook. In this way, I did not forget to make the CompareSources utility. The idea came to me several times and I forgot about it until I wrote it into a notebook.

[Randy Walker]

I never used to comment my code because no-one else was ever going to see it, but now I do it for myself.

Yep, that's always been my norm, and yes. Using long and descriptive variable names, and procedure names is a new practice for me as well. Even filenames are now more descriptive, which DOS didn't allow so it trained me to do bad from the start. Unfortunately the damage is already done on my helpdesk project.

[BarryG]

Unfortunately the damage is already done on my helpdesk project

Search and replace by whole word, case-sensitive, and not in strings/comments can fix that. Try it on a backup of your source first.