Since I am a systems librarian, I work with computer programs that relate to library work -- editing of catalog or acquisition information, making a computerized catalog work well.

In the old days, we worked with mainframe computers and folks did their work by sharing time on a single large machine. Nowadays we prefer to work with small computers and use the facilities of browsers, the programs we use to surf the web or work our email or transfer information around the country and around the world.

I was working on a very specific problem: one cannot simply turn a program loose to display "all" of the results of a search.

For instance, if one were to search for "North Carolina" in our catalog -- the North Carolina Supreme Court Library catalog -- one would literally come up with thousands of answers. The browser cannot handle that much. There must be limits. And so, when looking up any names or subjects, I limit the browser so that it can give a maximum of thirty answers. That is a reasonable number: about as much as you would get from a single eight-and-a-half by eleven inch page.

Now here's the problem: how do I set up the browser so that it can deliver the NEXT thirty answers, and the thirty after that, and the thirty after that?

When you think about it for a minute or two, the method i s obvious: the browser remains locked on the same place in the database, take the last answer of the previous thirty and make it the initial search for the next thirty. Too obvious, perhaps, but simply obvious.

And so I wrote the code that would accomplish that little trick. At the bottom of the list of thirty, when there was more to come, I put a small box that the searcher could click with the mouse that simply said, "MORE".

Obvious, right? Simply obvious. But my oh my! what a mess I made.

The program that directs and drives the browser is called Apache. It had another name at first -- most folks do not remember what it was -- but it was quite complicated and required a long, long series of "patches" to the original program to make it work. The programmers got tired of the name and, always in good humor, nicknamed the program Apache, for "patches." Yes, yes, yes, we know; there is no connection. But computer programmers ache for humor from time to time.

I click the mouse on "MORE" and all hell breaks loose. The screen goes blank. I hear the disk thunk, thunk, thunking and the computer threshes, but nothing happens.

I call up the Task Manager and lo and behold, Apache is using ninety-nine percent of the computer and appears to be hanging like a dead branch in a sweetgum tree (the yard is full of those trees here in Lizard Lick). All I can do is END the search -- the little red target with the plus sign on most browsers.

I begin to look at my code.

I stare at my code.

I recite the individual syllables and I print out each little variable that is involved in this fiasco until everything is displaying -- just before the eventual and destined "hang" by Apache. This cannot be right. Ninety-nine percent of the computer resources with a "hang" in Apache?

I begin to recheck my code.

I stare at my code.

This time, I recite each letter and then each syllable and I print out each little variable until the screen is full of useless information, just that brief instant before it "hangs" again and poor Apache screeches to a ninety-nine percent threshing incident.

To make sure that this new code is causing the problem, I take it out of the program, run it, and it hums like a Mercedes Benz E540 with enriched gasoline.

Yup, it is my new code that it turning Apache into a perpetual motion machine that accomplishes nothing. There is something wrong with this code, something frightfully obvious, something that will make me come back to it later and berate myself for being so, so dense.

My housemate's snoring was abating and he would soon be rising from his pad. I stopped, had a cup of coffee with him, and could not concentrate on anything else (newspaper, conversation). So I went shopping for food for the weekend.

My lips move as I lean heavily on the shopping cart -- I am having considerable difficulty walking these days -- and I recite the entire ten or twelve lines of code by memory, searching for the mistake.

The simple equal sign in a computer program does not really mean "equals": it means "is replaced by" -- and I am running through the various expressions in the program. So-and-so is replaced by such-and-such. Slowly but surely, I am driving myself nuts with this thing.

Sylvia, the checker at the store, asks if I am all right: three times she told me what the total bill was, and I simply stood there staring at her mumbling something all the while. I'm fine, I said and finally paid the bill.

I was going to watch a movie in the early evening, but instead I turned on the computer again, used the editor to go over the program one more time, those dozen lines that were causing me to go 'round the bend.

Finally, I noticed that when the code was supposed to contain a sentence, a series of words, only the first word would come up.

That is the clue.

By that time, I had so locked onto the text that was there in front of me that I could not determine what was going wrong. Now tired and becoming disgusted with this entire enterprise, I turned the computer off, the TV on, and my brain on autopilot.

I knew there was something going on with the TV, and that it was a movie. But my concentration, like Apache, had switched to ninety-nine percent threshing: my brain had become a machine that was working to the fullest capacity accomplishing absolutely nothing.

With the TV still on, I tried to roll over and go to sleep. And did. I fell asleep in a minute or two -- but I was wide-eyed awake again forty-five minutes later. It had to be that line that returned only the first word instead of a string of words. It had to be. It had to be.

The phrase kept repeating as I fell asleep again. And again, forty-five minutes later -- I am beginning to hate those digital clocks for their useless precision -- my eyes pop open. And this continues time after time after time. Finally, it is two thirty-three ante meridiem, my eyes pop open yet again and a voice in my head says, "Explanation mark." Nonsense. The explanation mark in this language means "not." There was no reason to use it. But it started my mind going again.

I got up, went to the computer, turned it on, called up the editor, began to read the program. Now, where was I? Explanation mark. Nonsense. But what other punctuation might be missing here? A period or semicolon? No, then there would be errors. What punctuation mark is there that -- in the event that it is missing -- does not necessarily cause an error in the program? Ah hah! quotation marks. The stream of words that inexplicably became one word, only the first word: if I surround that stream of words with quotation marks, what will happen?

Up with the browser. Up with Apache. Enter the search words and turn this baby loose.

I tore out all those extra printing statements and put the program back to something more "professional." My palms were sweaty as I touched the "Enter" key, and it worked.

No hang. No threshing. Two lousy, stupid quotation marks, and this awful thing is working. I tried four other examples. All of them worked.