Join devRant
Do all the things like
++ or -- rants, post your own rants, comment on others' rants and build your customized dev avatar
Sign Up
Pipeless API
![](/static/devrant/img/pipeless-devrant-banner-white.png)
From the creators of devRant, Pipeless lets you power real-time personalized recommendations and activity feeds using a simple API
Learn More
Search - "generic exceptions"
-
1. Learn to read and understand the errors and exception messages. While writing code you're going to be facing exceptions most of the time and the real cause of them is under a lot of generic error messages. That and a lot of patience and perseverance.
2. You're going to face clients and bosses that ask you to do a temporary "workaround" even though you know there is a best way to solve a problem even if it takes more time and effort. Don't "crash" against their ideas, try to find a mid-term between the fast and easy work around and the best solution and leave it open to improve it in the future. I have met a lot of developers that let the frustration stops them to be creative just because the approved development is not what they wanted to do. -
So I'm on my morning stroll. Walking, enjoying, watching the world around me.. It's nice how cherries blossom. They smell very tempting to stop there and enjoy the moment. Some flowers under the cherry...
Why do plants blossom again? Oh yeah, that's right, to exchange some speciments in order to grow fruit and seeds. To have their offspring. Just like every other living macroorganism [with a few exceptions ofc]. Life has no other way to survive but to exchange genetic material between two parties and only then trigger growth of the new life.
And that is a very strict rule. No more, no less: it takes exactly 2 organisms to make new life. But why is that? If my memory serves, theory of evolution says that life is like business: cut the losses and let the profits run. Over time it discards everything not required for the organism in order to save energy, and only successful new "investments" remain in the genome. The unsuccessful ones die before they proliferate, so the bad genes shall not survive.
It also says that very simple things, very simple changes lead to very complex outcomes. Us. Life.
But what is simple about life having to need 2 other lives? Exactly 2. It's either simple or efficient, depends on perspective. BUT IT IS NOT BOTH. Look at cells. They just split in half and multiply. Dead simple. It takes one of them to make another one. But with mammals, birds, reptiles, plants and other macroorganisms [excpt fungi] this is not the case! Why?!? I can't think of any scenario where two generic microorganisms, following some dead simple mutations, would come up w/ something that inefficient and overly complex. Like they're living on their own, multiplying by division, and smth very simple happens and they can no longer divide, only mate in pairs. The primitive, efficient and simple mechanism gets terminated and replaced with a different one, incredibly complex one!
Sure, we have protozoa which have similar reproductive mechanisms. They exchange genetic material to multiply.
But look at our, human cells. They dont need that! Look at some reptiles, some plants that only take one to make another. They don't pair as well! It's simple. Efficient. Why do protozoa need 2 for the species to survive?
It's not simple and efficient [tho helps us adapt, but its not my point for now]. See, things like this make ne wonder. What if we, the life, are not as accidental as we think? What if this whole mechanism was set off by someone or something billions of years ago? That's mean there are much older, much more superior cognitive organisms than us. What if protozoa was version 3 of new life [the first two did not survive]? Viruses - v2? Sea creatures - v3, reptiles - v4, and so on until they came up with us, mammals? That'd surely mean we are not alone in this universe. Are they watching us? Will they create a new species any time soon? What's our purpose, are we just an experiment?
And so, from cherry blossoms to existensial dilemma, my stroll is over. Time for breakfast :)1 -
Stuck in debugging a python script (using 'requests' library to achieve 'curl' type function) for the last 2 hours
Worked fine yesterday in Python REPL.. Throws exception when put in a long exisitng .py script.. Works fine again when put in Python REPL
Found out that when in REPL, I am careful to import 'requests' library every time but ignored when typing in .py script
(Feeling stupid)
Lesson learned: Don't use "generic exceptions"!! They never let you know what the real problem is.1