Sylwia Laskowska

Posted on Oct 31

🎃 10 Scary Lines of Code I Wish I Never Wrote 💀

#javascript #webdev #learning #programming

Ever opened your old project, looked at a line of code, and thought…

“Who the hell wrote this mess?”

…and then Git calmly whispered:

“It was you. Two years ago.” 😅

Been there. Many times.
At first, I used to cringe hard 😬, but eventually, I realized — that’s actually a good sign!
It means I’ve grown as a developer 👩‍💻 and that I’m writing (hopefully) less cursed code today.

So instead of crying over past monstrosities, let’s laugh at them together 😂
Here are some of my “legendary” mistakes — maybe you’ll recognize a few of your own.

💩 The Hall of Shame

1️⃣ text-align: left;
Because apparently, I thought that’s how you center things 😅

2️⃣ console.log('DEBUGGING...');
…still in production. Still haunting me 👻

3️⃣ if (this.isAdmin) { giveAllPermissions(); }
Because who needs security when you have trust? 💀

4️⃣ setTimeout(() => doSomething(), 10000);
A “temporary fix” from 2019 that’s still running strong 💪

5️⃣ border: 1px solid red;
The universal debugging tool™ 🔥

6️⃣ document.querySelector('#id').innerHTML = userInput
XSS? Never heard of her. 🙃

7️⃣ Array(10).fill({})
Ten objects, one reference. Ten bugs, one developer crying 😭

8️⃣ window.location.reload()
When in doubt — refresh it out 🤷‍♀️

9️⃣ style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100vw;height:100vh;"
My proudest “responsive” design moment 😭

🔟 git reset --hard HEAD~1
Didn’t even check what HEAD~1 was… instantly regretted 🪦

🫣 Bonus #11:

// quick fix for demo
That demo? 3 years ago. The fix? Still in production. 🧟‍♂️

💬 Your turn!
What about you — what’s your most cursed line of code? 😏
Share your shame below 👇 and let’s cry-laugh together like true devs 💻❤️

👋 I’m Sylwia, I break code so you don’t have to.
If you enjoy laughing at past bugs and learning from them — follow me here or on my Substack:
👉 https://sylwialask.substack.com/

Top comments (46)

Giorgi Kobaidze • Oct 31

I was looking for DELETE FROM Users; or rm -rf /

I'm glad I didn't find them. But git reset --hard HEAD~1 is also pretty scary.

Sylwia Laskowska • Oct 31

😂 Trueee! “DELETE FROM users;” is pure horror-movie-level code.
But yeah… git reset --hard HEAD~1 — that’s psychological horror.

Manpreet Singh • Nov 1

I once wanted to do git rebase -i HEAD~4 and for some reason I wrote git reset --hard HEAD~4

Sylwia Laskowska • Nov 1

Haha feels like
“I wanted to edit history.”
“History decided to delete me instead.” 💀

Milad • Oct 31

Lol i thought i was the only one who was scared of the 1st and 2nd one 🤣

Sylwia Laskowska • Oct 31

Hahaha same!
Those two lines are the reason I triple-check every terminal command now 😭

Ben Halpern • Oct 31

Happy halloween!

Sylwia Laskowska • Oct 31

Happy Halloween! 🎃👻 Thanks for stopping by!

Nikola Perišić • Nov 3

git stash clear

Sylwia Laskowska • Nov 3

git stash clear
→ also known as:
“I didn’t need those changes anyway… right? RIGHT??” 😭

Nikola Perišić • Nov 3

exactly! 😂

Cesar Aguirre • Nov 2 • Edited

For me, it was SELECT * FROM dbo.HugeTableWithoutIndexes WHERE DATEDIFF(DAY, ADateColumn, @AParam) = 0 Boom! A server on fire and users calling!

Sylwia Laskowska • Nov 2

This is the kind of query that doesn’t just run — it hunts CPUs for sport 😭🔥

shemith mohanan • Nov 1

Haha this hit way too close 😂
Every developer has that one “temporary fix” still haunting production — mine’s a console.log buried so deep I’m scared to delete it now.
Love how you turned cringe moments into a growth reminder — it’s the perfect Halloween post for devs 👻💻

Sylwia Laskowska • Nov 1

😂 omg yes — the haunted console.log that no one dares remove
At this point it’s not debugging, it’s a stability ritual
Thanks for the love! 👻💻

Waffeu Rayn • Nov 1

Using the rm -rf, using Ubuntu, i deleted all my UI on the system and was just able to work as if it was a server with just terminal

Sylwia Laskowska • Nov 1

Hahaha I love Linux and its whole
“You wanted power? HERE. HAVE ALL THE POWER.”
I swear, everyone who survives an rm -rf incident instantly gains +1 seniority 😅