So yeah, I'm finally updating the Lair again, which is great. However, I've been working on this update for quite a while, but I have fairly little to show for it. Why? Well, that's a really good question, with an equally good (although unequally long) answer.
One of the reasons, for this update, that it took so long is because of the work involved; for this example, let's say the Joke Archive. Wit this update, I decided that I'd have a seperate category for Animal jokes. Well, I can't just move the jokes into a different folder and be done with it. I had to re-read each and every joke (520 or so jokes), and if it needed to be moved into the Animal category, I had to duplicate the file into that directory. Then, I had to go through the index and remove the joke from the front page, and double-check the number to make sure that it was accurate (I'd hate to say I have 12 S jokes when I only have 10).
After that, I have to update the moved joke pages themselves. I have to update the link and image paths: images go from "../images/" to "../../images/", which is simple enough to do in BBEdit, and then link-wise I have to add an additional link line to the footer and add the directory to the last footer link. Next, I update the index page for the section to list the new jokes.
All that work, and for what? If I've done my job correctly, you won't notice a damn thing, as it will operate flawlessly, with no broken links to or from that page.
Another thing that delays Lair work is the fact that I have trouble deciding where to draw the line. The Joke Archive will, again, be my example of what I'm talking about.
So, I'm going through the jokes, one at a time, just like I mentioned above, pulling out the animal jokes as I go through. I start noticing that I could probably break out the jokes into at least another category... but that's when I was already halfway through the 500+ jokes I was sorting out. The last thing I want to do is go through all of the jokes again and figure out which ones should go into the new category (I'm not saying what it is because I'll be adding it in the future :P) because that would just delay this current update even further.
Another example would be my long-standing desire to convert the entire Lair so that it runs through PHP instead of just plain HTML (with a healthy dose of server-side includes thrown in for good measure). However, to do that, I'd have to sit down with some random page, work through what all would get changed, and then figure out how to implement those changes on each page (taking into account differences in the HTML code due to varying titles, image sizes, etc.). I'd be able to process all the similar stuff via BBEdit (God bless Bare Bones for making it), but still, that would be a lot of work that would require that I be sitting at the computer, uninterrupted, for several hours (7 or 8, to be on the safe side). That just doesn't happen in the real world.
Oooh! I just thought of another good example (not to overwhelm you with examples, but I realize that, so far, my examples haven't had much impact). In the middle of working on the update the other day, I started looking through another one of the sections on the site (again, keeping it under wraps so it's a bit more of a surprise when it happens). I was looking over it, and it was all too much; categories for it to be broken down into all over the place. So I start mucking with it here and there, and before I know it, I've managed to whittle down a section to a much more managable size, and this is something that I hadn't touched in a couple of years (literally). I was quite happy. As a result of it's more compact and efficient size, I'll hopefully be able to update it within the next couple of updates; the added bonus to this is that I'll then have a template that I can direct others to if they want to do similar guides for the Lair (meaning that there will be even more content). Huzzah! However, if I were to try to update that section (including making the changes I've done) with this update, I would have to a) update it as-is, with little content (and have it look like shit), or b) work on adding the content for this update, which could easily delay the update for a couple of weeks. Get what I'm saying?
And that's how it goes, on a regular basis, for me. I want to do just one more thing, but I've already done a whole bunch, and if I do that one more thing, it'll end up taking a few more days worth of work (taking into account that I can only get a few hours of work done a day, and those days are not necessarily back to back). Oh well. The sooner I get done with each update, the sooner I can work on the next...