Illusory Follies Sed quis debuget ipsos debugatores?

Google CTemplate

I just realized that I reinvented the wheel a month or so... I had a need for a nice templating language and although I did look for a solution that already existed, I didn't look hard enough. Google CTemplate is exactly what I wanted. My solution was basically to create this from scratch while ignoring all the complexities that I thought I wouldn't need. The result works (and may even be faster) but it feels clunky and it's not very flexible. You learn something new every day. Maybe with Rev2 of our release I'll start using this -- it certainly would be easier and the API is already documented.

From their website:

Here is a simple template file:

Hello {{NAME}},
You have just won ${{VALUE}}!
{{#IN_CA}}Well, ${{TAXED_VALUE}}, after taxes.{{/IN_CA}}

Here is a C++ program to fill in the template, which we assume is stored in the file 'example.tpl':

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string>
#include <iostream>  
#include <google/template.h>  
int main(int argc, char** argv) {
  google::TemplateDictionary dict("example");
  dict.SetValue("NAME", "John Smith");
  int winnings = rand() % 100000;
  dict.SetIntValue("VALUE", winnings);
  dict.SetFormattedValue("TAXED_VALUE", "%.2f", winnings * 0.83);
  // For now, assume everyone lives in CA.
  // (Try running the program with a 0 here instead!)
  if (1) {
    dict.ShowSection("IN_CA");
  }
  google::Template* tpl = google::Template::GetTemplate("example.tpl",
                                                        google::DO_NOT_STRIP);
  std::string output;
  tpl->Expand(&output, &dict);
  std::cout << output;
  return 0;
}

Malaise

...not to be confused with mayonnaise (although both tend to ruin an otherwise tasty sandwich).

I've had a lot recently (again, malaise, not mayonnaise). There's a lot going on and I empathize with Alice:

"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else — if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing."

"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

I'm way behind on reading, way behind on chores around the house (although I did finally wrap up my inspirational Plant Ledge Project). not keeping up with my supposedly rigorous exercise routine, behind on a huge bunch of personal geeky projects. Today I stayed home from work since I wasn't feeling so hot. I feel like I'm in continual deadlock as I analyze new tasks that I feel may be higher priority than my current tasks. There's no reason that I can't accomplish what I have in front of me, I just keep thinking that among the continual stream of tasks flowing at me, there might be a more critical task that I should immediately stick at the front of my queue. The problem is that except for very small tasks, almost all of my time is spent analyzing the incoming tasks. So even if I do identify the critical tasks and properly prioritize them, it doesn't really matter because unless a task can be done quickly, it will never actually have any opportunity to run despite its priority.

This causes feelings of guilt and malaise. Also, my cold doesn't help.