monkinetic weblog

As a developer for SixApart Services, one thing I do a lot of is put debug code in plugins I’m working on to output values to Movable Type’s backend activity log. This can get messy, and I usually end up writing a one-off debuglog function for each plugin to make this more convenient.

Well, I finally got tired of the run-around and wrote a rpoof-of-concept plugin that uses monkeypatching to add a debuglog function to MT’s built-in Plugin.pm.

http://github.com/sivy/movable-type-plugin-debug/tree/master

It works by looking for a config directive in mt-config.cgi:

PluginDebug mypluginid, myotherpluginid

If the id of the currentplugin is in that list, then calling:

$plugin->debuglog($msg);

…will add the message to the activity log with a log level of debug. For the lazy, you can also use ‘all’ as the value of PluginDebug:

PluginDebug all

And any call to $plugin->debug will get logged. My hope is to see this get added to MT core soon (hence the “proof of concept” status) but I welcome any thoughts on how to make this better for developers.

Kids are in the other room, watching Bolt. Jodi’s headed out to run errands, and if you’ve been following my tweets (seemingly the only place I post these days) you’ll know that I’m laid up with a bad back. Which, frankly, sucks.

I’m generally a healthy person - I’m no paragon of fitness or anything, but I do ok for the late-thirties nerd set. So waking up Monday morning with a stabbing pain between the shoulder blades was an unpleasant surprise. Two visits to the chiropracter on Monday provided temporary relief, but I awoke Tuesday morning in even more pain, and Tuesday is the chiro’s day off. So, I took some sage advice and instead of spending the day in front of the computer, jacking up my upper back even more, I spent the day in bed.

This would have been great, had I not also decided that I’d take some Tylenol plus codeine leftover from a previous bout of dental surgery. Bad idea. Not only did it make me completely loopy, I had a bad reaction and it left me throwing up all day.

Sigh. Today finds me better, but still hurting, trying to find the combination of heat, cold, rest, work, and double-strength Motrin that will let me continue to be a productive member of society.

Interesting thought: while many net-nerds talk about the new non-scarcity of resources in the internet age, they’re quite happy to use artificial scarcity to promote their new social network, in the form of invite-only services. Discuss.

I completely forgot that I had installed the iPhone interface plugin on my site until just now. Awesome.