I Accidentally Deleted 7TB of Videos Before Going to Production • Hacker News Board

Re: I Accidentally Deleted 7TB of Videos Before Going to Production

#21

Post by davbryn1 » Thu, May 05, 2022, 11:07 AM UTC

"What does this teach us? Well, it teaches me to do more diverse tests when doing destructive operations. It also should probably teach something to Vimeo and to my contractor but I doubt it will (and yes, the upload for some reason is still manual to this day. Go figure!)"

So you wrote bad code, didn't test it properly, ran it on production on the Friday before a release and are blaming Vimeo and [name redacted]?

And your resolution was yet another cobbled together script that you probably didn't test?

This isn't a great article to have attached your name to

Re: I Accidentally Deleted 7TB of Videos Before Going to Production

#22

Post by dewey » Thu, May 05, 2022, 11:08 AM UTC

whiplash451 wrote: post #8

So, “i am under NDA” but I reveal my client’s name and a lot of sensitive details about what we are doing. LOL.

Where do you see the clients name? I only see Vimeo being mentioned.

Re: I Accidentally Deleted 7TB of Videos Before Going to Production

#23

Post by crispyambulance » Thu, May 05, 2022, 11:08 AM UTC

JacobiX wrote: post #2

> It involves bad practices and errors from multiple parties in a world that might seem > foreign to the "Silicon Valley" world but paints an accurate picture of what > development is for small IT companies around the world Everybody makes mistakes even in the "Silicon Valley" world, but such problems cloud be easily caught by testing (which he did but it was restricted to the first page) and performing a simple dry-…

Exactly, everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes huge ones. In hindsight or on the sidelines it's always easy to point out a few technical things that WOULD HAVE avoided catastrophe, but does that help? I think not (aside from a cautionary parable for interns).

Things are complicated, people are human and forget things, there are pressures to "get it done" and override the guardrails. Everybody has horror stories. Some worse than others. Welcome to the OP's day of horror. I would think "Silicon Valley" dev-ops horror stories make this one seem like a triviality.

Re: I Accidentally Deleted 7TB of Videos Before Going to Production

#24

Post by searchableguy » Thu, May 05, 2022, 11:09 AM UTC

Peleus wrote: post #16

Under NDA but I'll give rough details of what's occurring while also naming my client and disparaging them to the public. Well that's a brave move...

They said they are a junior developer with not much experience. I'm afraid they may not know what is and isn't covered under NDA.

Re: I Accidentally Deleted 7TB of Videos Before Going to Production

#25

Post by wruza » Thu, May 05, 2022, 11:09 AM UTC

Code without constant logging of “utc [who] does what exactly” is a no-go for me for a long time. Also, if you have to be destructive, replace the with log() for at least one time (aka --verbose --dry-run) and check your expectations. One-shot scripts like this are screaming disaster.

(The problematic line lacks the closing ", probably a typo? I though it closed in an unexpected location)

Re: I Accidentally Deleted 7TB of Videos Before Going to Production

#26

Post by ceejayoz » Thu, May 05, 2022, 11:09 AM UTC

dewey wrote: post #22

whiplash451 wrote: post #8

So, “i am under NDA” but I reveal my client’s name and a lot of sensitive details about what we are doing. LOL.

Where do you see the clients name? I only see Vimeo being mentioned.

It has been edited.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31271836

Re: I Accidentally Deleted 7TB of Videos Before Going to Production

#27

Post by arein3 » Thu, May 05, 2022, 11:12 AM UTC

You can automate using puppeteer or selenium

Re: I Accidentally Deleted 7TB of Videos Before Going to Production

#28

Post by dkersten » Thu, May 05, 2022, 11:13 AM UTC

JauntyHatAngle wrote: post #5

legalcorrection wrote: post #3

[deleted]

I'm baffled by this too. Unnecessary bridge burning I'd call it. It's not even necessary to the story.

Its explained on the first line: " 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". I guess it applies to this, too, not just the technical aspects.

Re: I Accidentally Deleted 7TB of Videos Before Going to Production

#29

Post by BurningPenguin » Thu, May 05, 2022, 11:13 AM UTC

I accidentally deleted a printer from the printserver by using a python script. The docs weren't exactly clear, so i thought it would only remove the local printer connection. After reading this post i feel better now. My fuckup wasn't that bad in comparison. :)

Re: I Accidentally Deleted 7TB of Videos Before Going to Production

#30

Post by mmcclimon » Thu, May 05, 2022, 11:13 AM UTC

gilleain wrote: post #12

dsego wrote: post #4

> but at the time the code seemed completely correct to me It always does. > Well, it teaches me to do more diverse tests when doing destructive operations. Or add some logging and do a dry run and check the results, literally simple prints statements: print("-----") print("Downloading videos ids from url: {url}") print(list of ids) ... ... ... # delete() dangerous action commented out until I'm sure it's right print…

Yes, I find command line tools that have a "--dry-run" flag to be very helpful. If the tool (or script or whatever) is performing some destructive or expensive change, then having the ability to ask "what do you think I want to do?" is great. It's like the difference between "do what I say" and "do what I mean"...

The rule we have is that anything that is not idempotent and not run as a matter of daily routine must dry-run by default, and not take action unless you pass --really. This has saved my bacon many times!