Five and a half hours today restructuring a couple of web pages. These are basically huge (1000+ line) scripts with a handful of individual "functions", save that they aren't coded as actual functions, they're just conditional branches scattered throughout the script.

All the code's generated with print statements and embedded HTML strings (with all tags and attributes in uppercase, of course). Since it's not my project I have to tread carefully, but I'm biting my lip the whole time in frustration at not redoing the whole thing.

It's interesting. I often find myself thinking "is this really going to help anyone" when I'm faced with a project like this. Wouldn't it be more useful to spend the time on something people would actually care about?

Then that practical little corner of my mind notes that it's the pointless, trivial, mindless tasks for which people seem willing to pay these days. Solving big problems just isn't something people care about enough to pay for... at least, they don't seem to want to pay me to do it this week.