It seems like they: * didn't have good testing * did no load testing before * had no code reviews done * no design reviews done * had no or very less (usef

It seems like they: * didn't have good testing * did no load testing before * had no code reviews done * no design reviews done * had no or very less (useful) application logs * had no change control mechanisms defined or followed (upgrade a framework in production in a matter of minutes or hours as a way to wing it out and pray for it to work out?) * had no or very little automated tests * didn't have a detailed post mortem or root cause analysis to see what they could do to prevent it (the ending looked quit amateurish, by pointing to only one thing as a potential lesson) * wasted a lot of money that could've helped in the future (by instead using that to pay for en error) If I were in such a team, I would've honestly stated in such an article how deeply ashamed I am that we missed all these things, how "cowboy coding" and heroics must never be glorified, how we got very, very lucky in someone else waiving off charges (this is not a luxury that most startups or one person endeavors would have), and ended with asking for advice on what could be done to improve things (since it's obvious there were many more gaps than just how a few lines of code were written). To the team that wrote this code and this article — get some software development methodology adopted (any, actually) and some people who can help you follow any of those. Also read the rest of the comments here. You got very, very lucky in this instance. It may not be the same case again, and you may see your "life's work" get killed because you didn't really learn.