Thread by @Arby_K

Being an entrepreneur means you get to tackle problems daily. But what happens when you get stuck? 1/9

https://twitter.com/Arby_K/status/1386145486185320449

The year was 2012. I was working on a new billing software for my distribution firm. It had a PHP based frontend with a MySQL based backend running on an Apache server. (This idea came from a Tweetup). Everything was fine, but it was taking ages to get an invoice printed. 2/9

When you have to print dozens of invoices daily, this is a problem. 3/9

So, I checked with my uncle, who also ran (and still runs) a distribution firm. We and he were both using Foxpro based software to do the billing. I, for obvious reasons, did not want to ask my vendor. He connected me to his vendor, who told me why the printing was slow. 4/9

It turned out the dot matrix printer we were using was kinda old tech and it required an EXE file for printing. My PHP frontend had too many layers of communication and that delayed the process. 5/9

I thanked him and started working on a solution.

It was simple really. 6/9

I got the front end to output the invoice onto a TXT file in a certain folder. I then opened Notepad and wrote out instructions to print the files in that folder and delete them after printing. I saved it as a BAT file and voila, problem solved. 7/9

When you get stuck, it is okay to ask for help.

So long as you do it smartly. :)

8/9

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