Alright, so today I finally got around to messing with that ‘patrick ware’ idea I saw floating around a while back. Sounded kinda specific, maybe a bit old-school, but you know how it is – sometimes you gotta just try things yourself to see what the fuss is about, or if it’s just hot air.
Getting Started
So, I basically just cleared my desk, grabbed a coffee, and decided to use a simple little web server project I had lying around. Nothing fancy, just the basics. The whole point, as I understood ‘patrick ware’, was about organizing or setting up certain parts of the project in a very particular way. Not the standard way, mind you.
My first step was to look at the project structure. It was pretty standard. The ‘patrick ware’ notes I’d scribbled down (yeah, literally scribbled on a notepad from some forum post I think) suggested breaking down some configuration files differently. Not using the typical methods everyone defaults to these days.
The Process – What I Actually Did
Okay, here’s the blow-by-blow:
- Rethinking Config: Instead of my usual setup, maybe using environment variables or a single config file, this ‘patrick ware’ thing pushed for multiple, very specific files. I had to create separate files for different modes, like ‘development’, ‘testing’, ‘production’.
- Naming Convention: The naming was key, apparently. Had to be precise. I created files like , . Felt a bit redundant, but okay, I’m following the steps.
- Loading Logic: Then came the part of actually loading these settings. I couldn’t just use a standard library. No, I had to write a small bit of code myself. This piece of code would check some kind of environment flag or maybe a command-line argument, and based on that, it would dynamically `require` the correct settings file. So, if my app runs in ‘prod’ mode, it specifically loads `*`.
- Testing It Out: I rigged up my little server to use this new loading logic. Set my environment flag to ‘dev’, ran it. It picked up . Switched the flag to ‘prod’, ran it again. It correctly loaded . So, technically, it worked.
My Thoughts On It
Honestly? It felt a bit… manual. Like doing things the long way round. We have tools and conventions now that handle this stuff pretty smoothly, you know? This ‘patrick ware’ approach felt like stepping back a bit. It forced me to write boilerplate code for loading configs that libraries usually handle invisibly.
On the plus side, I guess it makes the config loading extremely explicit. You know exactly what file is being loaded because you wrote the logic line by line. There’s no “magic” happening behind the scenes from a third-party package. Maybe that’s the appeal for some folks? Control?
But the downside is maintenance. What if you add a new environment? You gotta go back and update that loading logic. And making sure the environment flag is always set correctly everywhere… feels like an extra step waiting to trip someone up. Compared to just setting environment variables and letting a standard library map them, this felt more fragile.
Wrapping Up
So, yeah, I spent a good chunk of the afternoon practicing this ‘patrick ware’ setup. It works. I got it running. But would I use it on a real project? Probably not. It feels like it solves a problem that we already have better, more robust solutions for. It was an interesting experiment, a throwback maybe, but I think I’ll stick to the tried-and-tested methods for now. Sometimes the “old ways” are old for a reason, and sometimes the “new ways” are just… better.
