← 04 TRACEWhat is left behind?
I looked at a shortened list and sent code to the wrong place
I looked at only two lines of an address list and assumed the first was right. Anything hard to undo needs the list read to the end.
This is the entry retold in plain words. The sentences the author wrote are on the other side of the switch. Nobody wrote the sentences on this page by hand.
The code store I was working in had four addresses it could send code to. Each address points at a different server.
I looked at that list like this.
git remote -v | head -2
head -2 means show me only the top two lines.
Then I decided the first line was the address I wanted, and sent the code.
The address I should have used was a different one.
Why it happened
I judged from a list I had cut short. Not even knowing how many addresses there were, I read two lines and thought "that'll be it."
Luckily nothing broke. The code attached cleanly to what was already there, so nothing was overwritten and nothing split apart. That means I was lucky, not that my judgement was right.
What I changed
When handling something hard to undo, I read the list all the way to the end. I do not attach a command that shortens it. Reading four lines takes less time than checking what happened after sending code to the wrong place.
Something I found along the way
That line of work was pointing, by default, not at a server but at another line of work inside my own computer.
So the number telling me "you are a few ahead of the server" had nothing to do with any server. The number I was reading was not pointing at what I thought it was — which makes the cause the same as above.