Reproducibility Memes

The classic "it works on my machine" defense gets brutally dismantled by the PM's logic. Sure, your dev environment with its perfectly configured IDE, custom environment variables, and that one obscure dependency you installed six months ago works flawlessly. But the PM's got a point—shipping your entire workstation to production isn't exactly in the budget. The developer's smug confidence crumbles faster than a Node.js app without error handling. Now they actually have to document their setup, figure out why it breaks everywhere else, and maybe—just maybe—learn what Docker is for. The PM sitting there like a boss knowing they just won the argument is chef's kiss. Fun fact: This exact conversation is why containerization became a thing. Turns out "works on my machine" became such a meme that the entire industry built tools to make your machine everyone's machine.

Ah, the classic "it worked on my machine" scenario but with extra steps. Junior dev introduces a bug to production, sees it once during testing, can't reproduce it, and assumes it's magically fixed. Meanwhile, senior dev's expression says it all – they've seen this horror movie before and know exactly how it ends. That bug is probably sitting in production right now, waiting for the worst possible moment to resurface... like during a demo to the CEO or when everyone's trying to leave early on Friday.

The eternal developer defense mechanism: "It works on my machine." Sure, your unique configuration of 17 Chrome extensions, that one specific Node version, and the blood sacrifice you made to the compiler gods made it work. But unless you're planning to ship your entire laptop with the product, that's not exactly helpful. The seasoned developer on the right knows better—reproducible steps are the difference between solving a problem and just bragging about your magical computer.

The ETERNAL BATTLE of software development in three panels! First, we have the developer smugly declaring their code works on their machine—as if their laptop is some magical unicorn with special powers. Then the product manager DESTROYS their entire existence with the brutal reality check that customers won't be getting their precious developer machine. And finally, the developer's character development arc completes when they reluctantly accept they need to provide actual reproducible steps instead of shrugging and saying "it doesn't work" like some kind of code detective dropout. The struggle is REAL and the pain is IMMEASURABLE! Docker containers were literally invented because of this exact conversation happening 10 million times per day!