Computers Are Magic
Every time I write a major application for a client, it never seems real during the process. There are so many small issues, little unit tests to be run, small bugs to fix. All the details are small minded thoughts, and only the occasional glance is made up to make sure the details still fit the over all plan. But somehow the plans are always good, and the details all fit together. Then there is a moment of magic when this very unreal collection of pieces turns into something real. And then it is a question of do you feel lucky? Do you trust yourself? Are you going to run it with debugging turned on, or crank it up to the warn level?
Crank it up to the warn level, run it, and walk away. Come back in 20 minutes, and it is done. No messages at all. No sign that it did anything at all. But then you poke at the resultant data, and as if by magic, everything worked. I am still amazed that I can leave the computer unattended for 20 minutes and have it do something useful in the real world.
(now if I can only get my MSSQL connection to stop timing out on me. No, I really do need that connection for 20 minutes!)