Five Times the Monster on the Client's Site Was Me

Everyone posts haunted house stories today. Mine are less atmospheric. In every one of them, the thing that broke the client's site was me.

Here are five, in no particular order of shame.

1. "It's live, check it out"

I sent the client a message saying the changes were done. The client opened the site and saw the old version.

The cache was holding on to the old site, and I was holding on to the belief that I had deployed. Only one of us was right.

2. Lorem ipsum, live and in production

Placeholder text is supposed to be replaced before anyone sees it. Mine made it onto the live site.

3. It ran fine on my phone

I checked the mobile version on my own phone, saw it working, and moved on. The client opened it on an older phone and it fell apart. Turns out "works on my phone" is just "works on my machine" with a smaller screen.

4. The animation that ate the battery

It looked great on my laptop, smooth and exactly what I wanted.

On a phone it heated the device and drained the battery.

5. The environment variables that weren't there anymore

I overwrote the environment variables on production. Yes, the real ones.

None of these needed a full moon. Just me, convinced it was fine.

What's the scariest thing you've shipped yourself?