5 ms·

What negativity and arrogance in the comments here. Jeez, it's like no one HN ever made a mistake, a bunch of 10xers ninja programmers here. Please read this:

What negativity and arrogance in the comments here. Jeez, it's like no one HN ever made a mistake, a bunch of 10xers ninja programmers here. Please read this: >I also want to preface this whole post by saying that I'm a Junior Developer with less than one year of actual experience. Some of the things that might seem obvious to some might not be so for me, thanks! It's just some kid sharing a mistake they made and owning up. Ease up on the "LOL what an idiot" attitude

FunnyLookinHat 4y ago
I was actually really impressed with this individual! For someone who has less than a year of experience, they're showing quite a bit of initiative, drive, and curiosity - which really are what make or break engineers as they develop. Taking the time to do a blog post (effectively a post-mortem) and share it is even better! And yes - I've literally done this exact same error (with TB of video data!). Spending the following week remediating all of that data loss was a great lesson in patience and attention to detail. :-) OP: If you're ever looking for a job be sure to send me a message. Contact info in profile.
- Moru 4y ago
  My mistake was on floppy disc with source code, other text files and images. Was hand editing (in hex disc editor) the floppy to get back the data, sector by sector. Fun times. Not going back there though :-)
  - nso 4y ago
    Mine was a DELETE FROM Users; WHERE... Fun was had.
    - codegeek 4y ago
      Usually the recommendation is to not start writing the DELETE query first. Write the SELECT query first and see the results. If you miss the WHERE clause, you will see that immediately. Then change SELECT * to DELETE. But I assume you have learned that lesson already :)
      - Moru 4y ago
        Yes, but it can't be stressed enough, always the first time for someone.
- tasuki 4y ago
  Wrt "less than one year of experience", looking at Nikita's CV and GitHub, despite the title, they aren't really a junior developer :)
  - franciscop 4y ago
    True, he's been teaching programming since at least 2018, I was in a similar boat where I'd been programming for almost 5-7 years for fun and profit before my first official fulltime job.
692 4y ago
there's an argument that the best people around are the people who have already (or almost) made some big mistakes. I have made a couple of huge ones - luckily I kept my job
- comprev 4y ago
  When interviewing candidates I always enquire about their professional mistakes. Their reply often is the decider between hiring/rejecting. I want to have colleagues who admit fault, be truthful about actions which lead to the issue, and learn from it. The learning includes organisations perhaps putting additional measures in place to prevent future issues. One candidate told of a story how he was On-Call early in his career and was told situations happened so rarely, just to continue living life as normal. Unfortunately for him, his pager went off at 02:00am while he was high as a kite on drugs - but felt he had to take action (mostly due to arrogance!). He promptly deleted production data and things only got worse when he tried to rectify the situation. Of course he was fired for his actions but ever since he's been stone cold sober when on-call.... just in case. He learned a valuable lesson about professional responsibilities.
  - DoubleDerper 4y ago
    Don't fire for the mistake. Fire for the inability of someone to own it, cover it up, or point fingers at others.
    - comprev 4y ago
      His honesty of admitting to being off his nut while on-call led to his firing, not the action of deleting things.
      - Forgeties79 4y ago
        >His honesty of admitting to being off his nut This now my favorite euphemism for being high
  - vsareto 4y ago
noufalibrahim 4y ago
I think it was a great post. Reveals a knack for clarity in explanations. The mistake is simple enough and natural for a junior. If it were just one video or something, it would probably not even be noteworthy. I think the developer learned from the incident too. So all good. I do think Vimeo was irresponsible in the whine affair though.
KrishnaShripad 4y ago
I have done a lot of such blunders myself. Accidentally deleted my unchecked code and had to re-write everything from memory. I envy those who claim to do no mistakes at all.
- aeroplanetext 4y ago
  I’ve been there! At least when you write it the second time it goes more quickly.
- boygobbo 4y ago
  Don't envy them - they are deluding themselves.
nspattak 4y ago
LOL! I have multiple years of experience than this man and still I could *very* *too* *easily* make a 7Tb mistake (or likely more :P )
grumple 4y ago
This sort of mistake happens all the time when you write in multiple languages. A key solution is code review, a standard practice which doesn't seem to have happened here (and certainly isn't the fault of a junior).
nicbou 4y ago
More importantly, this person is helping us learn from their mistake. This is something that should be encouraged, not mocked.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
snowwrestler 4y ago
I’m impressed by their commitment to automation. If that was me, once I realized that manually uploading from Gdrive to Vimeo would fix the problem, I probably would have just committed myself to manually doing that all weekend. It would feel safer and serve as a sort of penance for screwing up the automation the first time. But nope, they went right back to scripting and got it done.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
YorickPeterse 4y ago
I currently have about 12 years of experience, and a few years back I accidentally cleaned up GitLab's database a bit too well. I wouldn't be surprised if the people being dismissive simply never worked on a moderately complex and large system, and thus don't understand how easy it is to make these kinds of mistakes.
JacobiX 4y ago
Just to be fair also to some commenters, I think that the post had been edited after posting from what I remember ... so maybe the older comments are not very relevant.
- thevinter 4y ago
  To clarify, I only removed the company name and added the top disclaimer
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

FunnyLookinHat 4y ago

I was actually really impressed with this individual! For someone who has less than a year of experience, they're showing quite a bit of initiative, drive, and curiosity - which really are what make or break engineers as they develop. Taking the time to do a blog post (effectively a post-mortem) and share it is even better! And yes - I've literally done this exact same error (with TB of video data!). Spending the following week remediating all of that data loss was a great lesson in patience and attention to detail. :-) OP: If you're ever looking for a job be sure to send me a message. Contact info in profile.

Moru 4y ago
My mistake was on floppy disc with source code, other text files and images. Was hand editing (in hex disc editor) the floppy to get back the data, sector by sector. Fun times. Not going back there though :-)
- nso 4y ago
  Mine was a DELETE FROM Users; WHERE... Fun was had.
  - codegeek 4y ago
    Usually the recommendation is to not start writing the DELETE query first. Write the SELECT query first and see the results. If you miss the WHERE clause, you will see that immediately. Then change SELECT * to DELETE. But I assume you have learned that lesson already :)
    - Moru 4y ago
      Yes, but it can't be stressed enough, always the first time for someone.
tasuki 4y ago
Wrt "less than one year of experience", looking at Nikita's CV and GitHub, despite the title, they aren't really a junior developer :)
- franciscop 4y ago
  True, he's been teaching programming since at least 2018, I was in a similar boat where I'd been programming for almost 5-7 years for fun and profit before my first official fulltime job.

692 4y ago

there's an argument that the best people around are the people who have already (or almost) made some big mistakes. I have made a couple of huge ones - luckily I kept my job

comprev 4y ago
When interviewing candidates I always enquire about their professional mistakes. Their reply often is the decider between hiring/rejecting. I want to have colleagues who admit fault, be truthful about actions which lead to the issue, and learn from it. The learning includes organisations perhaps putting additional measures in place to prevent future issues. One candidate told of a story how he was On-Call early in his career and was told situations happened so rarely, just to continue living life as normal. Unfortunately for him, his pager went off at 02:00am while he was high as a kite on drugs - but felt he had to take action (mostly due to arrogance!). He promptly deleted production data and things only got worse when he tried to rectify the situation. Of course he was fired for his actions but ever since he's been stone cold sober when on-call.... just in case. He learned a valuable lesson about professional responsibilities.
- DoubleDerper 4y ago
  Don't fire for the mistake. Fire for the inability of someone to own it, cover it up, or point fingers at others.
  - comprev 4y ago
    His honesty of admitting to being off his nut while on-call led to his firing, not the action of deleting things.
    - Forgeties79 4y ago
      >His honesty of admitting to being off his nut This now my favorite euphemism for being high
- vsareto 4y ago

noufalibrahim 4y ago

I think it was a great post. Reveals a knack for clarity in explanations. The mistake is simple enough and natural for a junior. If it were just one video or something, it would probably not even be noteworthy. I think the developer learned from the incident too. So all good. I do think Vimeo was irresponsible in the whine affair though.

KrishnaShripad 4y ago

I have done a lot of such blunders myself. Accidentally deleted my unchecked code and had to re-write everything from memory. I envy those who claim to do no mistakes at all.

aeroplanetext 4y ago
I’ve been there! At least when you write it the second time it goes more quickly.
boygobbo 4y ago
Don't envy them - they are deluding themselves.

nspattak 4y ago

LOL! I have multiple years of experience than this man and still I could *very* *too* *easily* make a 7Tb mistake (or likely more :P )

grumple 4y ago

This sort of mistake happens all the time when you write in multiple languages. A key solution is code review, a standard practice which doesn't seem to have happened here (and certainly isn't the fault of a junior).

nicbou 4y ago

More importantly, this person is helping us learn from their mistake. This is something that should be encouraged, not mocked.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

snowwrestler 4y ago

I’m impressed by their commitment to automation. If that was me, once I realized that manually uploading from Gdrive to Vimeo would fix the problem, I probably would have just committed myself to manually doing that all weekend. It would feel safer and serve as a sort of penance for screwing up the automation the first time. But nope, they went right back to scripting and got it done.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

YorickPeterse 4y ago

I currently have about 12 years of experience, and a few years back I accidentally cleaned up GitLab's database a bit too well. I wouldn't be surprised if the people being dismissive simply never worked on a moderately complex and large system, and thus don't understand how easy it is to make these kinds of mistakes.

JacobiX 4y ago

Just to be fair also to some commenters, I think that the post had been edited after posting from what I remember ... so maybe the older comments are not very relevant.

thevinter 4y ago
To clarify, I only removed the company name and added the top disclaimer
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]