The Legendary Bug

On his first day at work, Alex proudly announced to the team:

"Don't worry, everyone. I write bug-free code."

The senior developer smiled.

"Excellent. Then you'll be maintaining the legacy project."

Alex opened the project.

There were 14,327 files.

The README said:

Final_Final_Real_README_v8_USE_THIS.md

He clicked it.

Inside was one line:

"Actually, use README_old."

He opened README_old.

It contained:

"This project is no longer maintained."

Meanwhile, commits were still appearing every five minutes.

Alex asked, "Who wrote this code?"

The project manager replied,

"Nobody knows. The original developer left six years ago."

Alex searched for the database password.

He found this:

// TODO: Remove before production.
const password = getPasswordSomehow();

"How does it work?" he asked.

"It just does."

Later that afternoon, Alex found a function called:

fixEverything()

Inside it was:

// Please don't touch this.
// We have no idea why it works.

He tried to improve it.

Everything stopped working.

Even the coffee machine in the office rebooted.

After three hours of panic, he restored the original code.

Instantly, the website came back online.

The coffee machine started making espresso again.

The printer, which hadn't worked for two years, suddenly printed:

"Nice try."

The senior developer walked over, patted Alex on the shoulder, and said,

"Congratulations."

"For what?"

"You've just met the legendary bug."

"What bug?"

"The one that disappears the moment you look at it."