The Person Who Once Used Python built a pallet location finder

“It's only employee data.”— Olivier, The Person Who Once Used Python

Reason:

Honestly? Because the dashboard disagrees with Finance by €2,400. With 1176 users and 82 feature requests.

Built by:

Olivier, someone from Procurement

Build time:

a long Thursday

Built with:

Excel macros, exposed over HTTP

Database:

207,739 XML files generated by SAP

Authentication:

the session cookie expires in 10 years

Deployment:

deployed to staging, which customers are now using

Responsible:

IT Service Desk, who calls it "the little tool"

Documentation:

a Slack message saying "I'll document this later"

Security situation:

MFA exists for the admin account, which everybody shares

Future disaster:

It will be migrated into SAP and then quietly migrated back.

Age: 2.5 years · originally expected to last 2 months · 6 owners so far · survived 3 reorganisations · last meaningful change 74 days ago

Rated common mostly because: 45% chance of becoming business critical, alive 15x longer than intended, 3 users.