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The tech world is rallying around a young developer who made a huge mistake

qz.com

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Re: The tech world is rallying around a young developer who made a huge mistake

#21

Post by runin2k1 »

steveb0x wrote: post #13
runin2k1 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or... since no aspect of the story is verifiable, and much of it is nonsensical in the reactions of all parties involved, it is completely fake.

What would be the motivation behind fabricating a story like this? I see posts of this nature all the time on r/csquestions. This one just happened to go viral.

Attention seeking behavior. Maybe a clever teacher asking students to create fake news to see how easy people are to fool. Boredom.

See -- Programmer Automates His Job Away for 6 years and then forgets how to program.

I don't think any individual aspect of the story is unbelievable, but when taken as a whole it stretches credulity.

Re: The tech world is rallying around a young developer who made a huge mistake

#23

Post by pier25 »

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

It doesn't make any sense that anyone would put a junior on his first day even close to a production environment, much less using a tool that can delete a database that btw you can't restore from a backup.

IMO this is either a false story, or this was done on purpose.

What if the company wanted to get rid of some data that would put the company in a difficult position in front of its shareholders or even the law? What if the lost data could prove that the CTO had made some other much bigger mistake that allowed hackers to get private information?

We will never know of course.

Re: The tech world is rallying around a young developer who made a huge mistake

#25

Post by throwanem »

pier25 wrote: post #23

I've said it before and I'll say it again. It doesn't make any sense that anyone would put a junior on his first day even close to a production environment, much less using a tool that can delete a database that btw you can't restore from a backup. IMO this is either a false story, or this was done on purpose. What if the company wanted to get rid of some data that would put the company in a difficult position in fro…

You assume a great deal of basic competence on the part of everyone at a relatively high level in our industry!

Re: The tech world is rallying around a young developer who made a huge mistake

#26

Post by dlp211 »

pier25 wrote: post #23

I've said it before and I'll say it again. It doesn't make any sense that anyone would put a junior on his first day even close to a production environment, much less using a tool that can delete a database that btw you can't restore from a backup. IMO this is either a false story, or this was done on purpose. What if the company wanted to get rid of some data that would put the company in a difficult position in fro…

Nah, this is pure Hanlon's Razor right here: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Re: The tech world is rallying around a young developer who made a huge mistake

#27

Post by [deleted] »

throwanem wrote: post #25
pier25 wrote: post #23

I've said it before and I'll say it again. It doesn't make any sense that anyone would put a junior on his first day even close to a production environment, much less using a tool that can delete a database that btw you can't restore from a backup. IMO this is either a false story, or this was done on purpose. What if the company wanted to get rid of some data that would put the company in a difficult position in fro…

You assume a great deal of basic competence on the part of everyone at a relatively high level in our industry!

[deleted]

Re: The tech world is rallying around a young developer who made a huge mistake

#28

Post by cdubzzz »

Fun story! A long time ago I interned for a very large catalog company. It was my first real internship in IT.

One of the first things (so a couple days in, not exactly day one) the CTO had me do was "map" their server room (e.g. figure out where data and power cables were going to and coming from, physically and virtually). While working my way through the back of a massive UPS rack, I stepped on one power cord that happened to traverse over another 10 or 15 cords. I did it in such a way that all of those cords were pulled ever so slightly from their UPS connections. I didn't even realize it until one of the staff IT guys came in the room a few minutes later and asked me what happened. Turns out those cords powered the 300+ Citrix thin clients in use by the national call center downstairs.

I thought for sure I was in huge trouble, but everything came back online fine, the staff IT guys poked some fun at me and the CTO helped turn it in to a valuable lesson. I learned a lot of great stuff during that interneship and to this day, 15 or so years later, I still think of that experience when doing risky work (or when I fuck it up).

Re: The tech world is rallying around a young developer who made a huge mistake

#29

Post by larrik »

protomyth wrote: post #8
ng12 wrote: post #2

This article clearly missed the point. He didn't make a huge mistake, he made a very tiny one. The company/CTO made the huge mistakes.

A old supervisor of mine told me that "You treat a new developer like a duckling near a pond with Northern Pike". There is no way you let them have access to production (or frankly, anything past a development environment) until they have been there a while and gotten the hang of it. On a tangent, I was paranoid enough in one position to have all my production terminal windows have a red background with yellow text.…

I definitely color my production terminals orange (and QA/staging get purple), and it's saved me a few times. I wouldn't consider NOT doing that.

Re: The tech world is rallying around a young developer who made a huge mistake

#30

Post by Teknoman117 »

protomyth wrote: post #8
ng12 wrote: post #2

This article clearly missed the point. He didn't make a huge mistake, he made a very tiny one. The company/CTO made the huge mistakes.

A old supervisor of mine told me that "You treat a new developer like a duckling near a pond with Northern Pike". There is no way you let them have access to production (or frankly, anything past a development environment) until they have been there a while and gotten the hang of it. On a tangent, I was paranoid enough in one position to have all my production terminal windows have a red background with yellow text.…

And here I was just put "(production)" in $PS1...
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