Game developer loses multiplayer service code
Man, that is really unfortunate. My heart goes out to these developers. I've worked with a few of these "do whatever works" cowfolk before. It is exhausting. And, as we see here, can ruin a company.<p>Personally, I'm getting really sick of the "software doesn't matter, do whatever you want, ship it" attitude in the industry. It creates a lot of needless toil because people do not want to learn how to do things properly.<p>Your software is your product. The primary cost of software is NOT the initial development: It is the ongoing maintenance. When you cut corners, you are taking out a loan against your future sanity and time. Higher quality code bases and better practices lead to stability, ease of extension, and more money.<p>___<p>A while ago I was working for a start-up using Google Cloud SQL Server with Postgres.<p>I was relying on the built-in database backup functionality, sleeping peacefully at night knowing I effectively delegated that task to a higher power.<p>Then, one day, I deleted the dev database. Whoops! Hmm... I cannot find the backups...<p>So I go onto the google cloud slack:<p>Me: "Hey, where are these backups stored?<p>Them: "The backups are deleted with the database."<p>I felt a bit like Wile E Coyote running in mid-air after running straight off a cliff.<p>Needless to say, I dropped all current projects and took a week to developing a backup, restore, and testing solution for our product. WHEW. Terrifying stuff!