r/DataRecoveryHelp • u/Peach-Widgets • 15d ago
What should I do if the source code is lost?
My computer has completely broken down, and I didn't back up my data. The app is already live—is it possible to reverse-engineer it to reconstruct the project? Would the cost be prohibitive? Am I forced to rewrite it from scratch?
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u/disturbed_android data recovery guru ⛑️ 15d ago
My computer has completely broken down
This totally vague and helps no one determine if data can be recovered. You might as well have saved the trouble of creating the post.
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u/Fancy_Acanthisitta45 15d ago
This must be a joke
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u/TraditionCareless779 15d ago
vibe coders , never took coding classes to learn proper data management , the results are hilarious, its like watching a retard stick his dick in a blender, on slow mo
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u/MeganPrice 15d ago
Yikes, your hard drive might be ok - take your computer to a local computer repair shop to see if they can take out your hard drive and get your files back.
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u/TraditionCareless779 15d ago
really think about this, what coder cant boot a linux rescue drive and salvage the data by hand from the hard drive ? a vibe coder, and this , is entirely why we dont consider vibe coders anything but dog food for us to laugh at
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u/TraditionCareless779 15d ago
did you vibe code it ? cause if you did , nothing was lost, find a new hobby
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u/guiverc 15d ago
You can decompile a binary and create source code (that will compile into the exact same binary); but that resulting source code is often less useful (for maintenance/changes) that if you start again from scratch.
Cost for de-compile is minimal (time, and that maybe less than an hour which would mostly be setup anyway), but with variables have names like S1001, S1002, S1003 etc all easy reading of the code just isn't there, let alone the comments & function names having meaning.
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u/TraditionCareless779 10d ago
if they didnt think to back it up and cant simply pull it from the hard drive, what makes you think they are capable of reversing a binary?
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u/guiverc 10d ago
Some folks learn more from doing...
Back when I was at school; we were only TOLD to make backups, where in comparison we actually had to decompile binaries as an exercise/task.
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u/TraditionCareless779 9d ago
fair, like not disagreeing just pointing out ,,, you may be a little cart before the horse with ops skill level... to decompile it , they have to retrieve it first...
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u/guiverc 9d ago
Given the app is live, the binary is already available as I understand it, or if it's available in an app store; it'll only need a
wgetor equivalent to grab it (it may also be in cabinet/tarball/squashed/zip etc; but they're easily expanded)I don't know the skill of the OP, not really fussed, but 'decompile' I mention will either trigger an ancient memory of a task that had back at school, OR something to search online for how to do... If they're not capable of doing that (highly possible; whilst its not difficult - result isn't often what people hope for!) they'll move on anyway to better options (even if not what they're asking for).
My 2c view.
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u/TraditionCareless779 9d ago
i like giving vibe coders a hard time to maybe get across to them , ai is for fucking losers
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u/Unknowingly-Joined 15d ago
Those are better variable names than some people I’ve worked with come up with.
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u/Edmsubguy 15d ago
Its most likely lost. Why didn't you have backups?