> suggestions starting with "you should have" aren't very helpful here
But they might be helpful to others.
There are ways to do these large refactorings that allow for incremental changes, never checking in a commit that breaks the build and where tests are passing at each stage. Your experience doesn't sound great and I'm sorry that happened to you, but I just wanted to add this to say that it's not necessarily personal.
I appreciate what you're saying here, and that your comment is more tactful than others, but I also see why the the op would be frustrated with the responses.
The responses to far, to my subjective reading, imply that the OP did something stupid and that's why they were in that situation. Again, it's just a personal interpretation, but I don't think it's a far-fetched one, and I don't think we have the context to make that assumption.
I agree that it can be useful to highlight the possible pitfalls to readers, but it's my opinion that it could be done in a more empathetic and tactful way that highlights our collective lack of context while still providing general advice to readers. I also think it would tend to lead to a more nuanced and useful conversation for the same readers.
Yeah, I agree completely. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and to contribute to this community, that we all hold so dear, with a soft touch.
But they might be helpful to others.
There are ways to do these large refactorings that allow for incremental changes, never checking in a commit that breaks the build and where tests are passing at each stage. Your experience doesn't sound great and I'm sorry that happened to you, but I just wanted to add this to say that it's not necessarily personal.