--- title: Deleting Systems You Don't Understand | daily.dev description: A personal story about deleting .ini configuration files as a child to free up disk space, which crashed the family computer. The author draws a parallel to... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/deleting-systems-you-don-t-understand-ftwgxod2l twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Deleting Systems You Don't Understand | daily.dev og:description: A personal story about deleting .ini configuration files as a child to free up disk space, which crashed the family computer. The author draws a parallel to... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/deleting-systems-you-don-t-understand-ftwgxod2l og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/ftwGxOd2l.png og:image:alt: Deleting Systems You Don't Understand og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Deleting Systems You Don't Understand **[Ibrahim Diallo](https://daily.dev/sources/idiallo)** · 4 min read · 18 upvotes · 1 comments ## Summary A personal story about deleting .ini configuration files as a child to free up disk space, which crashed the family computer. The author draws a parallel to professional mistakes — developers deleting functions they don't understand, DBAs dropping tables — and extends the analogy to DOGE's approach of cutting government programs without understanding their purpose. The core lesson: deleting systems you don't understand causes cascading failures, regardless of scale. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@sbmagar13** · 1 upvotes > Awesome! > > Almost a similar experience! ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Manager showed off his DOS prowess – with a command that wiped data](https://daily.dev/posts/manager-showed-off-his-dos-prowess-with-a-command-that-wiped-data-yitfjsint) · The Register · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [blog dot information dash superhighway dot net](https://daily.dev/posts/blog-dot-information-dash-superhighway-dot-net-j9fn8gg7v) · Lobsters · 15 upvotes · 0 comments - [Delete Your Code\!](https://daily.dev/posts/delete-your-code--bvw2mxij1) · Atomic Spin · 64 upvotes · 14 comments - [AI didn't delete your database, you did](https://daily.dev/posts/ai-didn-t-delete-your-database-you-did-kkofhdzzw) · Ibrahim Diallo · 88 upvotes · 17 comments --- Tags: [#architecture](https://daily.dev/tags/architecture), [#technical-debt](https://daily.dev/tags/technical-debt) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/deleting-systems-you-don-t-understand-ftwgxod2l) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Deleting Systems You Don't Understand","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/deleting-systems-you-don-t-understand-ftwgxod2l","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/deleting-systems-you-don-t-understand-ftwgxod2l"},"datePublished":"2026-07-16T07:04:05.332Z","dateModified":"2026-09-13T20:04:20.513Z","description":"A personal story about deleting .ini configuration files as a child to free up disk space, which crashed the family computer. 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