Empty Slate, Literally

I just accidentally deleted all files on my laptop because of a destructive git command recommended by copilot. Not the bots fault, I read the warming following the code bubble only after executing the code:’)

(example snapshot)

This was the command in question. As I learnt later on, it does have a dry-run version “git clean -ndx” that list outs all the files that would be deleted if you ran the -fdx version.

What I thought this code did was clean all the 10000+ commits in the VS code source control panel WITHOUT deleting the edits. However, deleting a commit you haven’t pushed in-fact deletes all the edits you have made. To make it worse the git repository I assumed to be open in a folder called “code” was in-fact open at the root /Users/anushaanindita. Hence, ALL FILES that weren’t tracked ended up permanently deleted.

After sobbing about this to my friend for 2 hours, I figured two things:

1. I have to build everything I have worked on over the last 2 years from scratch. Except one exceptionally important project, that I will have to figure out a way of redoing, everything else is re-buildable, better in-fact. At the top of that list of new/old projects I have to rebuild this summer, it now says “Learn git, from scratch.”
2. The cliched silver lining is that I never got around to pushing those projects to Github because they never seemed good enough. So now over the next 60 days I get to rebuild my complete portfolio from scratch, without the false safety of having done “something” in the last two years of college.

So now? Now we build, in public, from the ground up. Starting from zero after 2 years of effort is scary, but this is the only way and the possibilities are endless. Stick around to see if I learn my lesson before or after another catastrophic command.