Psss, want some terrible IT stories?

Are you afraid of the dark? Maybe a zombie apocalypse or monsters under the bed? We know not. We, IT specialists, have their own sources of horror: crooked users, far from IT bosses, crashed servers, missing or not made backups, went down code and Agile-rallies, when in fact the whole development is controlled by screaming “just yesterday”, “the customer is throwing” , "There criticized the prod." On the eve of Halloween, we decided to find the most terrible stories, tell a couple of ours, and at the same time hear yours. Well, are you ready to tell the stories chilling soul?

Easy warm up to goosebumps

Let's start with one very simple function. In theory, she should check whether the number is prime.

bool primeCheckUgly(unsigned long long int n){//good luck     ...
      
      

        
        
        
      

    
        
        
        
      
      

        
        
        
      

    
     

Well, if the comment wished us good luck, then you are definitely ready to see a screenshot of the full code for this function. Ready? Well?





And what does the code snippet do in the following screenshot?

Scary Stories Time With Reddit

Story 1

The user came to discuss whether this code is suitable ... for a business application. Commentators were at least in shock and found a lot of problems:

• nightmare security threats, SQL vulnerabilities
• problems with code support (monolith for 3.5 thousand lines)
• problems with scaling
• terrible tricks, functions and organization of the code (the author did not regret spaces)
• poor structure and readability of the code.

Severe readers advised to leave as is and learn a lesson for business (yes, we, as a hosting provider, also know what kind of poor clients come from "free" providers from plow). Well, the best comment has dotted i: “If not for alcohol, most code I see would keep me up too” (If it weren’t for alcohol, most of the code I saw would not let me fall asleep either).

Story 2

An online tutorial treats each word as a separate HTML element, so copying and pasting more than 10 words per paragraph is not possible. However, in some places Reddit is almost like Habr, therefore, in the comments, only a few users commented on the author of the code as mu ** ke, the rest gave a lot of advice on how to get around this feature and get all the text in the best possible way. If someone needs methods, you can read about them in the thread itself .

Story 3

This guy was paid $ 50 an hour for such a code, and he created (nagovnokodil) a whole file with a length of more than 3000 lines.



The customer is to blame, the community decided, because $ 50 is a penny, which means that you can only rely on hiring a "monkey." Some decided that this was just a bad joke and the guy was setting his watch. Well, a detailed analysis of what is wrong in the code in the thread .

Story 4

This, of course, is a story bordering on science fiction, but who at the dawn of a beautiful youth did not do something like that.



The guy was too lazy to select all the files in the directory and did not come up with anything better than to use the utility

 rm -rf /*
      
      

        
        
        
      

    
        
        
        
      
      

        
        
        
      

    
     

But something, apparently, skipped a beat in his soul and he turned to his service station, whether the correct train of thought was chosen, the guy received confirmation and ... well, you understand. Comments deliver one hundred percent: “how tasty your tears are”, “it makes no sense to ask a technical manager how to delete files on Linux”, “you must not be very comfortable with Linux” (we think there’s still a bit of trouble with Google and common sense) , "Fail!". We think that the story is more like a bike, but it was from it that an unfortunate chill passed from the back and somehow I immediately wanted to get out of root. By the way, there are some useful tips there too .

Story 5

A bike similar to the previous one. One team :-)

 sudo rm –fr /
      
      

        
        
        
      

    
        
        
        
      
      

        
        
        
      

    
     

The story of our friend from his past experience

"2008 year. Our site has been hacked. It was a normal, secure site, which was visited by more than 5,000 people a day. And now the main text appeared with errors about the Pentagon and the threat to take one hundred million from us (by the way, this was only part of the company's revenue). Sat-shniki on the ears, the director in a panic, STO washed the rope, the developers ran for Vaseline. Nothing. They closed the site, hung 404, received a flurry of calls. The next day, mom a la Anfisa Chekhov came in the best juice and brought a completely tortured kid of 16 years in glasses. Says: "This is my son, he is a hacker, take him to work." The service station got out of the loop, took the small one by the shoulder and forced it to show the small bauble (we haven’t announced the details), they told their mother about the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, but they presented something to the guy. ”



In general, the human factor is the reason that each of us can have a personal Halloween on any working day.

How not to become a hero of such stories for your colleagues

Programmer Tips

• Comment on the code, especially if you are new to development. This will help you, and colleagues, and those who will enter the project much later.
• Better yet, write readable code. Code is nothing more than a special communication language for a team of programmers. Good code is self-sufficient, keep this in mind. Let even those who come to the team after you understand it.
• Call variables and functions normal lexical units so you can understand what they should do. FsskdQwertZeta
  
  
  
  bad MoveEmployeeFromList
  
  
  
  normal.
• Follow the code style adopted by the company - thanks to this, the project will be not only understandable, but also safe: any team developer will be able to make corrections in an emergency situation, without wasting time unraveling either obfuscation or a bad style.
• Do not waste garbage in the code, modules, projects. Remove unnecessary modules, do not drag non-working legacy with you, if possible, refactor to throw crutches and melt bikes to a good code.
• Test your code, check real scripts. If you do not test the code, it will be tested by prod :-)

Tips for system administrators

• Document your work to make it easier for your colleagues, shift workers, and yourself to understand standard scenarios.
• Make backups. Do their mother, backups!
• Automate your work, use ticket systems and monitoring systems.
• Work only on request - so you can prove that you are working, and not driving to Dota, and “just reloading the 1C base” is not “simple”.
• Build a system of information security in the company, prevent offenses from colleagues and especially zealous “advanced users”.
• Log, log, keep records.
• Have a replacement fund of peripherals and hardware, manage licenses, budget - be an IT manager, and not just a “call guy”.

Obviously, isn't it? But compliance with these simple principles will close more than ⅔ possible problems that risk turning into chilling stories on Habré, Reddit and other resources where your fierce fakap is ready to discuss.



Friends, today, on Halloween, we crave chilling stories and your IT practice. What made your palms sweat, dark in your eyes, and cool inside? For the best story (with the highest comment rating), we will give prizes. For first place - an autographed hoodie by thelevelord , creator of Duke Nukem:





For second place - stock of socks for the whole year :)