A crack of lightening echoes through the eerily empty halls. The early hour left the office cold and alone. The empty, dark offices in the distance held strange shapes and creatures that could barely be made out in the dim light of the morning.
It was an ordinary move to production, like so many that had passed before. He had checked his notes over and over again to make sure all was in line. The other developers had done their duty in scripting out all the database changes that were moving that week. He had carefully poured over the scripts like a zombie at an All You Can Eat Brains buffet. Once all the changes had been confirmed, he started his move.
Everything started off well. All scripts compiled and he knew they would execute well. He backed up all the stored procedures that were being changed, "just in case." He carefully recreated the folder structure of the modified files to handle any ghouls that would come around during the move.
And so it came time to kill the wabbit, so to speak. As he prepared to update the database, he clicked through the many horrifying screens of the utility. The scripts were prepared and he was ready to submit. A lone wolf howled in the distance, possibly foreboding at the impending doom that was to be cast onto the land. His finger slowly descends on the keyboard for the fatal click. And that's when it happened.....
Death comes swiftly to the site. An unrelenting onslaught of exceptions pour into the support account. A mighty pillar of hope has been slain from within, but the wound is not immediately known. Something is horribly wrong, but the heinous villain is shed from the light.
Frantically, he pours through the code to find out the cause. He quickly informs the magistrate so that the town mob does not ascended on him in rage. He scans every script, making sure nothing was overlooked. Every line is painstakingly reviewed to find the culprit. SELECT. UPDATE. DELETE. Which one is the culprit??? Surely this foul beast cannot hide forever!
And then he sees his foe, glaring at him with callous daggers of hate and injustice. He is known to many cultures by many names, but in this realm he is called.... "DROP DEPENDENCIES". Perched arrogantly at the top of the script this evil fiend sits, mocking him with every character. This dastardly code has the ability to destroy the hearts and souls of admins, by completely....absolutely...totally.. removing anything in its path that the database the script touches. Living up to its namesake, the code did just that. A swipe of his blade beheads the opponent with one strike.
The commons stood in honor at the what lay before them. A malicious demon has just fallen upon the land, stripping it of the light of peace and functionality. The foe is quickly vanquished. Having exerted his might on the peasants below, he holds no power over the realm.
The initial recovery resurrected the site in short order. Links once again worked. Pages compiled with their former speed and glory. But the system was never same. Months of customer data lost, and a heroin bested by one of the fiercest foes in the realm. Life carried on, but will never be the same.
Take heed, all of those who read this tale. Some ghost stories are true. Danger lies around every line break. A simple checkbox could hold the fate of a site in a single click. Beware of the DROP DEPENDENCIES ghoul!!!!