"It Works on My Machine" and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves

"Congratulations! You’ve discovered a new dimension where physics doesn’t apply."

Let’s be real: your local environment isn’t a development setup—it’s a magical realm where dependencies resolve themselves, environment variables grow on trees, and all edge cases politely disappear. But the moment your code touches production? It’s like sending a pampered housecat into the jungle. Suddenly, your flawless logic is just… wildlife footage.

So of course it works locally! You’ve spent years curating this digital landfill into a fragile ecosystem of deprecated gems, half-installed Docker containers, and a node_modules folder that defies the laws of thermodynamics. Production, meanwhile, is a sterile prison where your code is forced to follow the best practices.

Disgusting.

The Art of Deflection

When your code fails in production, remember: deny, deflect, disappear.

Master these phrases:

• “Must be a caching issue.” (Nobody understands caching. Nobody.)
• “Did you run npm install?” (The problem is always npm. Always.)
• “Works on my machine ¯_(ツ)_/¯” (The nuclear option. Deploy with pride.)

For advanced gaslighting, add:

• “This worked in the staging environment.” (Staging? Never heard of her.)
• “Must be a race condition.” (No one will ask follow-ups. They’re scared of races now.)

The ‘Works on My Machine’ Certification Program

Become a certified “It Works on My Machine” developer in 3 easy steps:

1. Ignore all warnings. Compilers are just fearmongering.
2. Never test on a clean environment. If it runs once, it’s fine.
3. Blame the user. “Are you sure you clicked the button right?”

Graduation Exam: Deploy a “Hello World” app. When it crashes, insist the server is “oppressing your creativity.”

The Five Stages of Production Grief

1. Denial: “But it WORKS LOCALLY!”
2. Anger: “WHO TOUCHED MY CODE?!”
3. Bargaining: “What if we just… reboot the universe?”
4. Depression: Cries in sudo rm -rf /*.
5. Acceptance: “Fine. I’ll add another try-catch.”

Conclusion

At the end of the day, “It works on my machine” isn’t a failure—it’s a philosophy. A testament to humanity’s hubris in the face of entropy. So next time your code explodes in production, remember:

“You didn’t write a bug. You wrote a ✨feature✨ that only works in a parallel dimension.”

Call to Inaction:

Why fix your code when you can just buy a “Works on My Machine” hoodie and lean into the meme? Share this blog with a colleague who’s currently sobbing into their IDE. Together, we can normalize delusion.