Demoralized developer's desperate hack came back to haunt him on LinkedIn
A script that shouldn't have worked, on a project that never ended, for a company that hardly cared
Walter, a former employee of a duopoly in the poetry and television industry, recounts his demoralizing experience after a series of layoffs forced him to upgrade systems from Python 2 to Python 3. The upgrade coincided with a switch to a new version of Linux that now natively supported Python 3. However, the older Python 2 systems faced resistance, and morale was low due to recent redundancies.
In a moment of desperation, Walter decided to point Python 3 at Python 2 by creating a symbolic link, expecting nothing but trouble. To his surprise, it worked perfectly, with no complaints or notifications. He celebrated his success, leaving a comment in the configuration script. Eight years later, Walter still checks LinkedIn occasionally and encountered a former colleague from the company.
The colleague reported that the last Linux upgrade was finally complete, and they had also discovered the symbolic link. Walter couldn't help but feel a moment of exasperation at the recurring issues that haunted him.
Written by urgent.news from The Register Science's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.
