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Wrecked my whole project by skipping version control at a hackathon last saturday
I was at this 48 hour hackathon in Austin last weekend and thought I was saving time by just copying files into folders like a caveman. Around hour 30 I accidentally overwrote a file that had 4 hours of work in it and couldn't get it back. Lost a solid chunk of our frontend code just before the final push. Now I literally open git init before I even write hello world. Anyone else learn version control the hard way like this?
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williamm821mo ago
Learned that lesson in a much less cool setting actually. Was reconciling a client's quarterly statements and "fixed" the spreadsheet by saving over the original with some test numbers I'd been messing with. Took me three hours to rebuild it from memory and a crumpled printout I found in the recycling bin. Now I treat every new file like it's made of glass and git init is my bubble wrap. Your hackathon loss sounds way more painful though, at least my spreadsheet didn't have a deadline in 18 hours.
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christopherwilson1mo ago
Man, I swear this is the kind of lesson that sticks with you forever no matter the setting. What nobody really talks about is how these mistakes actually make you a better problem solver in the long run. Sure, you lost three hours rebuilding that spreadsheet, but now you probably know that client's data better than if you'd just backed it up and moved on. I bet you caught a few small errors in the original while you were recreating it from that crumpled printout too. Hackathon pressure is brutal, but your quiet office panic over quarterly statements has its own kind of grit. We all learn the hard way, but those scars come with a weird silver lining.
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