Syntax - Tasty Web Development Treats

949: Web Dev HORROR Stories + Spooky Trivia! (Spooky Stories Pt. 1)

22 snips
Oct 27, 2025
Join Scott and Wes for a spine-tingling special where coding nightmares come to life! They share chilling true stories of dropped databases, locked-out passwords, and catastrophic code errors. Did you know a single misplaced semicolon can cripple older browsers? The hosts even dive into a fun trivia game about historic browser hacks. With costumes and spooky tales, it’s a thrilling mix of tech terror and laughter that will keep developers on the edge of their seats!
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ADVICE

Keep Recent Tested Backups

  • Always keep recent backups and test restores before doing destructive actions in production.
  • Automate backups so a human mistake in a tool like phpMyAdmin doesn't cause data loss.
ADVICE

Add Guardrails For Production Tools

  • Add visual guardrails and environment separation for production admin tools to avoid accidental operations.
  • Make production interfaces visibly distinct and restrict dangerous actions behind stricter checks.
ANECDOTE

A Semicolon Broke Hundreds Of Sites

  • A single stray semicolon saved browsers except older Internet Explorer, which broke for many clients.
  • The error came from a shared PHP config file that prefixed every site's HTML with a stray character.
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