THE VIDEO SHELF · programming mistakes
The Worst Typo I Ever Made
Tom Scott recounts the worst typo he ever made, a subtle mistake in code with destructive consequences at a previous job. It is a cautionary tale about irreversible operations.
Why HN readers recommended it
Shared in outage and accidental-deletion threads as a relatable, well-told horror story.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- Tom Scott
- Topic
- programming mistakes
- Format
- commentary
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 2
- HN mentions in dataset
- 4
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2020–2026
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
Tom Scott has a great video on his "Oh Shoot" moment ( [VIDEO] ). Thinking back on the times I've had code exist nowhere else but the clipboard...
rococosbasilisk on Hacker News · 2020-08
In The “Oh Shoot” MomentThe good ol' Ohnosecond: > An "ohnosecond" is the second after one makes a terrible mistake, such as deleting the wrong file or sending a text message to the wrong person, where the person in question can do nothing but say "oh no". The term …
sneela on Hacker News · 2026-07
In List of Humorous Units of Measurement
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.