Ninjineer

a Nerd with Delusions of Wonder

I wish all my order confirmation emails were this much fun.

Tumblr Theme: Undercover Operative 2.0 — The spy returns with a new disguise. If you look closely, though, some of the details shine through from the previous version. Hopefully, this theme will pop up in a theme garden near you very soon. And if it’s rejected again, well, at least I can say I’m using it for my tumblelog.

Neuschwanstein Castle - View of the back — (Photo taken 2006-07-29)

Neuschwanstein Castle - Looking up one side — (Photo taken 2006-07-29)

Neuschwanstein Castle - Courtyard — (Photo taken 2006-07-30)

Neuschwanstein Castle - Seen from the road up to it — (Photo taken 2006-07-30)

Neuschwanstein Castle - Seen from the Marien Bridge — (Photo taken 2006-07-29)

Three years ago, I managed to finagle a four-week training stint in Frankfurt, Germany. For my last weekend there, I decided to visit Neuschwanstein Castle. (My memory is a bit fuzzy on how I arrived at that epiphany.)

Turns out, it’s no where near Frankfurt.

Despite an utter lack of German language skills, I still managed to navigate the combination of public transportation and trains required to get there and back again. It no doubt helped that most everyone interacted with spoke English.

It also helped that I was willing to ask for help.

The castles (I didn’t know there were two until I got there) and the things around them all closed up for the night at five. Around 4:30 I decided I ought to check into my hotel. One problem, I had no idea where it was. I walked the entire length of the town, but came no closer to finding it.

There was a lady walking to the parking lot. From her uniform, she was a waitress at one of the restaurants going home for the day. I went up and asked her if she could point me to the hotel. She tried, but the directions were not as simple as “head down that street and take a right.” Amazingly, she offered me a ride and dropped me off a block from it. Not only did she get me to my hotel, but she got me there before the front desk closed at 5:00 (I had no idea they did that so early). If I had walked it, I’d have arrived too late to get a room.

(If, against all odds, the person reading this is the wonderful lady who helped me out, thank you for rescuing my excursion from disaster.)

A Little Background

A while back, I submitted a theme to the the Theme Garden that was rejected with the ever-so-helpful feedback, “Does not fit accepted Tumblr blog aesthetics.”

This came as something of a disappointment. I looked but saw no obvious technical flaws or egregious style violations. I was left with an irritating conclusion: the reviewer just did not like the way it looked.

I became indignant at that point. While I grant that the theme did not possess universal appeal, I also felt it was the equal or better of many themes already in the Garden. In light of this injustice, my enthusiasm for theme-ing withered, and I focused on other interests for a time.

Eventually, I took another look at my rejected theme. I did so with new eyes and discovered there were some aspects I no longer found so aesthetically pleasing. I conceded perhaps the reviewer had had some basis for his judgement after all.

All was not crap, though. Some elements I still found innovative. I decided to return to the drawing board, so to speak. Over the course of a week, I evolved a new prototype theme. The new incarnation incorporated several new ideas with all the things I liked best from the original theme.

Apply Palm to Face

With the new prototype in shape, I set to convert it into the format of an actual Tumblr theme. During this process I had occasion to reference the original theme’s source code. The following line of code jumped out at me:

<h1><a href="/">Undercover Operative</a></h1>

That line is perfectly correct. For a prototype. For theme source code it should have read:

<h1><a href="/">{Title}</a></h1>

The later fills in the blog’s title with whatever value the blogger defines. This behavior is expected of all general purpose Tumblr themes. The former sets all instances of the blog to have the same title, which is a clear violation of the aesthetic rules.

A technical flaw existed all along.

Myriad Emotional Responses

As that realization sunk in, I experienced a number of emotions:

• Chagrin — I strive for perfection in my writing, whether it’s prose or code. Mistakes where I know better are unacceptable, even if they occur with distressing frequency. Sure I’m human, but I don’t have to like it.

• Annoyance — If instead of tossing out a generic, all-encompassing boilerplate rejection, Tumblr had offered something specific I probably would have found the problem. Something like “Theme is missing a required variable” would have been sufficient.

• Regret — While Tumblr makes an easy scapegoate, truth is I made the mistake. I caved into doubt. I robbed myself of my enthusiasm. These are all my missteps, my failings.

• Gratitude — If the theme had been accepted, I never would have iterated the design. With a second go-round, the theme is much improved, even if I say so myself. I’ll post it soon, and you can judge for yourself.

Today I got an email from a user of one of my themes. She noted that when she added a video post, some strange code would appear underneath the video. I checked out the source code for her tumblelog and spotted the problem right away. Some of the HTML code was missing for displaying one of the theme’s images.

Before writing her back on how to insert the missing text, I checked my copy of the submitted source. The error was there too! Apparently, when I was copying the name of a image into the source, I inadvertently wiped out some of the surrounding code. I quickly posted and submitted a revised version.

What amazes me, though, is that this bug has been present since Feb 27th and according to the stats 1758 people have installed this theme. Why did this glaring error not come too light sooner? Even though it slipped by me, surely someone would have noticed.

* MFU = Massive Fuck Up