Alright, let’s talk about what I tinkered with today. Had this idea, kinda tagged it ‘lebron a n d wade’ in my notes. Yeah, spaced out like that. Looked cool, I guess. Don’t read too much into the name, it was just a placeholder, really.
So, the plan was to look at synergy. You know, how two different things, or maybe two processes, could work together better. Like those two guys on the court back in the day. One strong on its own, the other strong too, but together? Something else. I wanted to see if I could apply that thinking to a couple of scripts I’ve been messing with.
Getting Started
First thing, I pulled up the two scripts. Let’s call ’em Script A and Script B. Script A does its job okay, kinda like the powerhouse. Script B is quicker, more agile, handles the smaller stuff. On their own, they’re fine, but they don’t talk to each other. Output from A just sits there until I manually feed it somewhere else. B runs on a schedule, regardless of what A did.
My goal: make them interact. Make B aware of A’s output. Make A trigger B sometimes. You get the picture. The ‘lebron a n d wade’ dynamic.
The Actual Process
I started by looking at Script A’s output. It dumps a log file. Okay, simple enough. So, step one was to modify Script B to check for that log file. If it exists, maybe read the last line or check the timestamp.
Took me a bit longer than expected. Script B wasn’t originally built for reading files, so I had to add that functionality. Ran into a few permission snags. The usual stuff. Had to tweak user rights for the script. Always forget about that.
Then, the triggering part. This was trickier. I wanted Script A, upon finishing its main task, to directly kick off Script B. Not just leave a file, but actually start the process.
- Tried embedding a system call within Script A. That felt kinda messy.
- Looked into maybe using a simple message queue, but that seemed like overkill for this little experiment. Felt like bringing a cannon to a knife fight.
- Ended up just having Script A write a specific “trigger” file when done. Script B would then have a separate small watcher process, just checking for this trigger file every few seconds. If it sees it, it runs the main Script B, then deletes the trigger file.
Yeah, I know, polling isn’t the most elegant. But hey, this was just me messing around, seeing what works easily. Practical, not perfect.
The Outcome
After a few hours of coding, testing, fixing typos, and more testing, I got it working. Kinda.
Now, when Script A finishes, it drops its log and the trigger file. The little watcher sees the trigger, fires up Script B. Script B checks the log file from A, does its thing based on that, and then cleans up the trigger file.
Is it seamless like LeBron throwing an alley-oop to Wade? Nah, not really. It’s more like one guy leaving a note for the other guy who checks his mailbox every minute. But hey, they’re interacting now. It’s a step up from working in total isolation.
So that was my ‘lebron a n d wade’ practice for the day. Less about basketball stars, more about making two stubborn scripts finally acknowledge each other’s existence. A small win, but a win nonetheless.
