The Night I Almost Quit: What a Bug Taught Me About Staying Humble

Whenever someone around me feels down, I tell them this story. It is the night I almost quit.

I started building One Click POS in February with no industry experience. That went against my own advice to others: don’t jump into something far outside what you know. But there was a client and an opportunity, so I thought, why not.

The call: “Things just seem to disappear”

During Ramadan, one of my clients called to say that things just seemed to disappear. Usually, when there is a bug, I know where it comes from or how to investigate it. This time I had nothing.

For the first and only time in my life, I did everything. I ran every test I could think of. I simulated the problem 100 times. I spent hours on Stack Overflow, back when there was no AI to ask. Nothing. I did not sleep that night, and I seriously asked myself what I had got myself into.

Day two: the cause was not where I was looking

On the second day, after hours more of trying, I found two links that matched a suspicion I already had. A database function I was using was not designed for accounting-type use, at least back then.

So I tested the test. I ran that function in a loop, adding +1, 200 times. The database gave me 199, or 201, or 200. Never reliably 200. That is not acceptable when the numbers are money.

It was also one of the days I seriously considered that I was out of my depth and should do something else with my life. Close to dawn, the solution came. A few hours after I completely changed how the accounting part of the system worked, the problem was fixed.

If you feel like quitting programming, remember this

If you feel like quitting programming, or building a business, or whatever you are stuck on, these are the three things I took from that week:

• Test your assumptions and your tools, not only your code. I had trusted a building block without checking it. The answer only appeared when I tested the test.
• Fix the foundation, not the symptom. Patching around the problem would have left me waiting for the next surprise. Changing how the accounting worked solved it for good.
• Do not make big decisions at your lowest point. I was close to walking away right before the answer arrived. Rest, step away, ask for help, then decide.

The main lesson is the simplest one: tech humbles you. If it has not yet, it will, and that is normal. That is a period I will never forget.

When did tech humble you? Tell me in the comments.