Looooong time no blogging!!!

Never knew I'd become this busy..(!)It's actually not the project...which by now,has seen more installations and uninstallations than actual work..It's not that I installed and re-installed for the heck of it...I was ASKED to do that!!! Whenever something didnt work as it was supposed to, the universal solution seemed to be 'Uninstall..restart (if needed)and re-install!!' Though this tactic fixed some errors..it also made matters worse in some cases...I would have laughed at the whole idea of fixing a bug by just uninstalling and reinstalling...but now that seemed the easiest way out!!!
Once I had to install a toolkit, and there was this irksome message on its console..'Product not installed/configured properly'...There wasnt a great response when I uninstalled and re-installed...It still gave the same error! The error details were all too esoteric. Something failed and some nice huge dotted expression exception...(someone's throwing and catching code was now working!!!)...I decided not to rely on the 'technical details'...which only depressed me further..java.lang.etc.etc..was definitely not a great help to install a silly toolkit! I tried finding some 'leads'...At the end of some 2 hours...I had something to work on..'some plugin.xml' was the culprit..!I ran a search for that god forsaken xml document....The things that stared at me on the screen sent a cold shiver down my spine...What nonsense!!! what is the ERROR here?!!
Frankly, the whole document made little sense...some plugin, some version and some other incomprehensible stuff...all within strange tags!
A cup of coffee was invigorating...!!! Deciding to rely on my common sense,I went through the xml doc again...ignoring all the things that didnt make sense the first time! All of a sudden, my eyes fell on something seemingly innocuous...'version=2.0.1'...Nonchalantly, I clicked the folder I had installed the zipped executable in....what I saw, was most exhilarating! the toolkit was version 2.1.0...and here was the statement that made the whole install a nightmare!!! I was already feeling like a pro..(lol!!!)with that ingenious troubleshooting!! When I changed the version and restarted...nothing happened for a while..After what seemed like eternity...'updated plugin.xml,error in config' was the message on the console!
This is going to require more skills,I thought...Unwilling to give up, I decided to uninstall, re-install and then make the changes...just for one last time...
After some 20 minutes,one more cup of coffee (this time black!) and loads of prayers...I got to see the error-free console message...'Product installed properly, config saved..blah blah..' I was filled with a deep sense of victory...and decided that I had done a great deal of work for the day and left the place!
The next morning, my mentor called me for a meeting...'should not forget to tell him about last evening's episode..' I made a mental note....and marched triumphantly to his cube..He asked what I had been upto, whether I had installed the toolkit and if I had started using the toolkit...With a sense of purpose, I began..'Sir,I had lots of problems in installation...'He patiently listened to the whole story..( minus, of course, the coffees and chilling-out phone calls I made!) On hearing the whole episode, he said..'Good Work! keep it up..' and continued..'Are you sure there was no mention of it in the README?'....that caught me unawares..Not wanting to seem careless, I said, 'No Sir, there was no mention about it!'...'Fine then..carry on..' and I vanished out of his cube! I returned to my machine and checked the README, just to see what it had, apart from the usual instructions...At the end of it, a small line in italics caught my attention..I didnt remember seeing it the first time I read the README...It said..'Please check the version numbers in all plugin and feature files before running the application'!!!!!
I was only glad that my mentor, a busy person, would most likely not find the time to download the toolkit, install it AND read the README!