I’ve been programming computers for a long time.  Getting paid to write computer programs, even, which I thought was pretty darned funny when I first started.  People were paying me to do something that I loved.  But I digress.

After 30 years, you’d think that I would have learned that there’s no such thing as a small change that you can push into production code without having to test.  You might get away with it from time to time, but eventually that arrogance is going to cost you.

But, hey, it’s a simple change!  What could go wrong?

When you hear yourself say that, think about what you’re saying.  And then spend the few minutes it will take to test your assumption.  If nothing else, you’ll save yourself the embarrassment of explaining to your business partner that you made the kind of mistake that you’d reprimand an employee for.

Fortunately, all it cost me was a little embarrassment, a few hours’ lost sleep, and an additional hour of down time for the crawler.  I got off easy.