mkphlog v0.5 and the Hundred-Year Bug
Tuesday Aug 7 9:12:20 2012
Well, another mkphlog release is out. This one is just a bugfix which
was brought to my attention by fellow SDFer chals. Basically, if
you started a new post with mkphlog, it would not ask if you wanted to
edit the post with your specified editor. The fix (which was relatively simple)
has been uploaded to bitbucket and the downloads section of my gopherhole.
This is not the only bug in mkphlog, nor will it be the last. However in
preparing for the next mkphlog release, I found a particularly
interesting one. I've nick-named it the Hundred-Year Bug. Since mkphlog
creates post directories only using the last two digits of the year, a
post on the same date 100 years later will result in a naming collision and
mkphlog will refuse to create a new post. It will only insist that you edit
the post you made 100 years earlier.
I'm going to mark this one as WONTFIX mainly because I can't see any
practical reason to change mkphlog's structure for a bug most (or probably all)
people won't even encounter. Also, I figure that this is plenty of heads up in
case anyone plans to live more than 100 years, or if anyone who wants to
create a phlog which is passed down from generation to generation.
(That one actually isn't such a bad idea, but I doubt I'll even live
for 80 more years, much less 100)
It's also worth mentioning that pharc, chals's phlog archiver, avoids this
problem entirely since it archives each year's posts in its own directory
(which uses the full year as the directory name). Even if your not planning on
living for approximately 100 more years, I still suggest you check it out anyway
because it's quite useful!
Happy Phlogging! and may you all live long, happy, gopher-filled lives ;)
(DIR) mkphlog download
(DIR) chals's pharc