A lack of options, the saying goes, focuses the mind admirably. In my situation, that means I've been scripting like mad to make sure I get information in a timely way and don't overlook anything. And the last few days I've been coming home and writing even more code, but of a more complicated nature. Normally this would make me cranky, to be doing work programming in the evening, but since this particular project is intended only for me, I get to choose my language. I've been reacquainting myself with Common Lisp. I had forgotten how fun programming could be —
;;; Insert timed data point, returning the previous value (useful for
;;; some statistical models).
(defmethod update ((dh ts-datahistory) val &key timestamp)
(let ((ts (if (null timestamp) (get-universal-time) timestamp)))
(multiple-value-bind (idx daytype) (bin-index dh ts)
(macrolet ((ref-and-set (accessor)
`(prog1
(,accessor dh idx)
(setf (,accessor dh idx) val))))
(if (eq daytype 'weekday)
(ref-and-set weekday-history-ref)
(ref-and-set weekend-history-ref))))))
I don't know how many of my readers will understand that, but it just fills me with joy to use such a tool. Lexically scoped macros!
Next up, quality time with North & Hillard's Greek Prose Composition...
