Self Writing Code

From my journal:

2/9/2018

I'm not saying this is paranormal, because I've been sick and we know how that can be, but sick or not it's platypus odd.

Since the doctor won't let me go back to work until Monday, I decided to work on Trespauze Manor, my online haunted house. I wanted to make it responsive (usable on mobile devices) as well as PCs.

The website is HUGE, so I knew it would take some time, plus the responsive coding is new to me. Adding new coding to existing code isn't always easy. This meant I had to go through every single page, and for Trespauze there's a lot of them. Of course since you've got the page open, may as well check all the links, do some updating, delete some no longer used files, etc. Basically the rooms of Trespauze are image maps (pictures with clickable areas to produce some effect), for some odd reason in many of them I found the 'hot spots' had mysteriously moved. But ok, maybe that had something to do with the new coding, not too hard to fix.

Then I came to my 'contact' page, THE page that fails to impress me, as it's basically just a clickable link. Very, very old school. Now, I can create a contact form, no problem, it's the back end php script that powers the 'sending' of the message to a specific email address that frustrates me. On a good day, php and I fight. It just isn't my strong suit. But,98% of websites do want a contact page, and if I can do it all in house so much the better. So I challenged myself, and failed. And failed. And failed. Even using code found on the web, I failed, because there's this thing called 'depreciation' of a term that can cause the whole thing to fail. Finding that single word and what it is now substituted with, can be nerve wracking.

Now here comes the really odd part, during the night I could swear I heard typing on my keyboard, but since I had turned the computer off, and I was home alone, I didn't wake up entirely, I assumed I was dreaming, or something from the downstairs apartment just sounded like a keyboard, and fell back to sleep (my med makes me very tired). But when I woke up, the code had been changed... Very odd. What's more it works!

*End of journal entry*

Before, I continue, I want to clear up a few things that I already know will raise questions (when ill, I tend to be brief in my writing, but I didn't want to tamper with my entry very much.) I KNOW I had shut the computer completely down before going to bed, and if I had left a program open, it would have said so before closing. In other words, it is simply not possible to turn it off and leave a program open. How can I be so sure that I turned it off completely? My PC is in my bedroom, and when on there's a few lights from the keyboard, router and tower, that in the dark can seem quite bright, and because they occasionally blink, are quite annoying, when trying to go to sleep. Those were off, as well as the wee monitor light, when I went to bed.

When I woke, my computer was not only on, but had the screen saver up! I did wonder if perhaps the computer had managed to reboot itself (updates or something) but after I cleared the screen saver, there was my coding program - fully opened to that particular code, and as I said, the code had been changed. Proof of this came, when I went to close it and the programmed piped up with, "the code has been changed, do you wish to save the changes?" I just can't come up with a logical explanation for this. Although until today, I was quite happy to put this event in my 'that's weird' file.

Five years ago, I was in college pursuing my degree in multi-media technologies (yes, I was a nontraditional student. Meaning I was older than some of my instructors), and I was still that 'scary smart' student, I was as a child. That's not bragging, just fact. In this case, my instructor for php coding adored me, simply because I was very good at ferreting out depreciated words and making our coding examples, taken from brand new texts work. Depreciation in coding can happen very quickly; what worked 6 months ago, might not work today, even though you can find working examples on the net, published prior to the change.

I recall one exchange he and I had in class over an example that would not work. No one in class could get it. Finally frustrated, I raised my hand and asked for his help. Dead serious, he says to me, "I was hoping you could tell me!" We both laughed, and together finally figured it out, much to the class's relief. That began our bond really, I think. Even after I graduated, now and then one of us would email or message the other, "Ok, what's wrong with this?" Our 'friendship' never really went much beyond the perimeters of coding.

This morning I learned of his death on February 9, the night my code mysteriously changed.