10 Developer Horror Stories To Keep You Up at Night

In a lighthearted and eerie guest post by LaunchDarkly, a series of humorous and cautionary programming mishaps are shared to entertain and educate software engineers, especially during the Halloween season. The anecdotes range from crashing data centers due to minor code errors, such as a misplaced index in a loop, to the infamous AT&T telephone system crash caused by a misplaced "break" in a C language "switch" statement. Other stories include the classic mistake of forgetting to save work, the complexities of integer division in Python, and the unintentional consequences of unchecked user input. Through these tales, the post emphasizes the importance of diligence, thorough testing, and humility in software development, while also inviting readers to share their own "error horror stories" on Twitter. This exploration of programming blunders not only serves as a reminder of the potential pitfalls in coding but also highlights the community's camaraderie in learning from shared experiences.