...Penney Garrett...

Sometimes in life when we don't pay attention and get a bit too cocky or lackadaisical, the universe comes along and takes us down a peg or two. Or three. It's easy to think that this is happening to you simply because you're new at something or because you're a terrible person (ha ha), but the reality is that these kinds of things happen to everyone.

I recently managed to delete the entire codebase for a group project off of Github. I almost puked all over myself when I realized what I had done. Yes I'm still at student and still very new at web development, but I'm also in the fourth and final module at Turing School of Software and Design, a very rigorous and thorough program. I am about to graduate because I have, supposedly, proven that I have the skills to be a professional developer out in the real world. This would suggest that I am capable of working on a team with other developers without deleting the main repository. You would think.

So how did this happen? Well I had been working on a feature on my own branch and it wasn't panning out. Things were buggy and weird. I asked a teacher for some help and he confirmed the thought that was developing in my head - that because I hadn't written very much code and had forked the repo instead of cloning it (making for slightly more inconvenient merges later on down the road), that I should just delete the work I'd done, clone the repo fresh, and start over. Simple enough. I asked if I could just delete a fork off the main repo the same as deleting any repo, and he said yes. We then did that thing where one person is like "You do this" and the other person is like "Yeah, yeah, that's what I thought, cool, I got this" and the two of us quickly navigated through the red warning box that says something like "THIS ACTION IS PERMANENT" all scary-like and pops up when you're deleting a repo on Github, not paying attention to the fine print in the slightest. We called it good and I thanked him as he went off to help another student. I then went back to clone the main repository only to find that it didn't exist. I clicked around like a crazy person for awhile as my heart rate started to skyrocket and finally grabbed my computer and literally sprinted across the school to find the teacher that had been helping me. He was with another student and, trying not to interrupt them, I instead stood awkwardly next to them doing a frantic dance not unlike the "I gotta pee NOW" dance.

He quickly came over to try to calm me down and help, surprised that there had been a way at all for me to delete the main repo and tried to take responsibility for the situation saying "I told you to do it". I told him that was ridiculous, that I am supposed to be a responsible developer at this point in time and was just as much to blame, if not moreso. The two of us messaged my primary teacher in charge of the project a half a dozen times, and I decided to not touch my computer for awhile and bike home so I could cry in peace.

The End.

Just kidding! So what happened next you ask? Well my primary teacher got back to me quickly and very kindly assured me that all would be okay. She sent an email to Github support and told me that because everyone on the team had local copies of the code base on their machines, that we would be able to restore the project in one way or another and everyone could keep working in the meantime. Github support got back to her in a matter of hours and restored the repo completely, even things specific to Github like comments and issues.

Here are the main takeaways from this debacle:

1. It is very important when you are put on a project to have a clear understanding of what security permissions you've been granted. The reason that I was able to delete the main repository is because I had been given administrative priviledges (priviledges that we then revoked for a time being mind you!)


2. Read the damn fine print. Just do it, even if you think you don't have to because you're doing something you've done before. If you're carrying out an action with potentially large consequences (like deleting a repo!), read that short scary message before you click "ok" especially if there are other people besides yourself on a project. If I had noticed that one line of text that clearly stated that I was deleting the main repository and not my fork, all of this would have been prevented.


3. Just because someone with more experience is helping you, don't assume that you can check out mentally when dealing with sensitive issues - they are human just like you and make mistakes just like you. Yes, they may have a better eye for certain things, but it's still your responsibility to keep alert and be their second set of eyes when doing something with large consequences. What happened in this scenario is that I was thinking "Oh we're good, he knows what he's doing" and he was thinking the same thing about me - so neither of us caught the mistake until it was too late.


4. But, if something like this does happen to you, don't freak out! My teacher shared a story of a past co-worker deleting the entire production database within his first 2 weeks at a job. After he actually DID throw up, they called Heroku and had the entire thing restored. Because these things happen (and happpen a lot!) the support teams at these various places know what to do in case of emergency. Don't let that allow you to be lazy and not pay attention, but do know that everything in software can indeed be restored.