From what I've seen (and felt!) one might be facing a really nasty bug which has caused a sudden crash in a production environment which is holding up many hund

From what I've seen (and felt!) one might be facing a really nasty bug which has caused a sudden crash in a production environment which is holding up many hundreds of very angry customers. Some yelling may have occurred. You know you should sit back and reason out what the problem might be (it worked before -- what's gone wrong?) but the rookie reflex is to start coding right away and to slap something -- ANYTHING! -- in that might make things right. That should make the yelling stop! When that doesn't work, another patch is put in. Then another, and another, corrupting data and making things even worse! ...and so the cascade of 'Hail Mary' programming fixes is put in place until someone finally pulls the plug and yanks the poor, choking programmer aside for a breather. It's rare for programmers to have a 'do or die' moment and few are prepared for or recognize it when it comes. If you ever feel the urge to rush: Don't.