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Discussion on: Share Your Best Typo Story!

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bytebodger profile image
Adam Nathaniel Davis • Edited

I started coding before there was any such thing as an "IDE" that would helpfully highlight when I referenced a variable that hasn't previously been defined. Not sure what kinda font I was using. Whatever it was, in this particular font, on my machine, there was literally no visual difference between an uppercase I and a lowercase l. So I had some kinda code like this:

$caller = $_POST['caller'];

But one of those lowercase L's was actually an uppercase I.

Even worse, this is way before I knew what "developing locally" meant. So I'd save my code, FTP it up to the live server, and then refresh the page on the site. And... the entire site was down.

I think it took me two days to figure that one out. I don't mean that, over the course of 48 hours of "life time" I eventually found the answer. I mean that, for two days, I probably troubleshot that sucker for 16+ hours each day until I finally realized what was happening.

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jsn1nj4 profile image
Elliot Derhay • Edited

Uppercase I and lowercase l looking the same is one of my pet peeves with fonts. I really like being able to distinguish between characters easily.

But wow, that hurts (and sounds like something that could've happened with me lol).