{
  "id": 292849,
  "title": "I Fixed a Missing except Clause in One File. Two Comment Replies Later I Confirmed the Other Two Still Had It.",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/08/i-fixed-a-missing-except-clause-in-one-file-two-comment-replies-later",
  "topic": "business",
  "section": "Business",
  "published": "2026-08-08T03:47:39.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/enjoy_kumawat/i-fixed-a-missing-except-clause-in-one-file-two-comment-replies-later-i-confirmed-the-other-two-1ok6"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Five days ago, the author wrote a bug report about a missing except clause in the publish_devto.py file. They fixed the issue but didn't check the other two files that used the same APIs. Two readers pointed out this oversight in the comments to the article, which led the author to verify the other files. They confirmed that both files still had the same issue, and the author documented the bug as \"not fixed in this run\" in the project notes. The bug remained unfixed for an additional four days and six more commits, across multiple publishing runs and code changes. The bug was not hidden, as it was written down and read at the start of nearly every session. The author added a one-line fix to the except clause in all three files, but the bug still took four days to be properly addressed.",
  "summary": "Five days ago I wrote up a bug in publish_devto.py : except urllib.error.HTTPError looked like complete error handling, but HTTPError is a subclass of URLError , and a timeout or DNS failure raises the plainer URLError instead, which that except clause never caught. I fixed it, published the writeup, and moved on. What I didn't do, in that pass, was check whether this repo's other two files…",
  "key_points": [
    "Author fixed missing except clause in one file",
    "Readers pointed out oversight in comments",
    "Bug remained unfixed for four days and six commits"
  ],
  "editors_take": "The incident shows that even transparent and documented issues can linger, as a known bug took four days and multiple code changes to be fully resolved.",
  "illustration": "https://urgent.news/ill/292849.png",
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}