Job Title: Frontend Developer
Code Name/Alias: Cookie Tamer Andrew
Introduction
In the fast-paced world of programming, challenges often arise unexpectedly, pushing us to innovate and collaborate to find solutions. Recently, our team encountered a particularly vexing problem related to the cookie consent banner that we named “The Cookie Monster Banner Issue”.
The Challenge
Imagine the frustration of users being unable to interact with our application due to a malfunctioning GDPR cookie consent banner. Despite its seemingly harmless name, this issue posed a significant obstacle, disrupting the user experience and threatening to derail our progress.
Technical Approach Breakdown
To better understand the situation, we have a system that is based on Symfony and integrates multiple React front-end applications and provides them with some facilities: one of them would be the GDPR cookie banner, which is the same for all of our applications – you accept the cookies in one application and it is generally available for all of them.
This implementation has led us to treat this issue as a front-end problem, trying to debug the application itself and find the proper solution, isolated for that single application that broke down. After multiple trials to find the problem, attempts to reach the provider for support and endlessly navigating Stack Overflow for any similar issue, a workaround has come as a scalable solution: what if we would change the implementation itself in our system?
I decided to approach the issue by creating a distinct implementation tailored specifically for this application. Despite primarily specializing in front-end development, I delved into understanding the inner workings of our Symfony-based system. Through this exploration, I discovered a method to prevent the problematic cookie consent banner from loading universally. Instead, I implemented a separate instance within our application. And, as you might have guessed, it proved to be the solution we needed!
Professional Impact
This entire journey has reminded me of how much I like being a full-stack developer and how important it is to sometimes see the bigger picture. Colleagues have helped me a lot to take a pragmatic look over the problem and to produce the final implementation — but it would be absurd not to recognize how easy the solution finally was when the right dots were connected, and the problem was approached from different angles.
It has also shown how important it is to have basic knowledge in multiple skillset areas.
Despite what my colleagues would think — i.e., that I am tired of debugging after this impediment — I just realized how I could improve the process and become a better problem solver for the next time I am faced with such an urgent and schedule-breaking, unforeseen problem.
Future Relevance
We hope to avoid encountering similar issues in the future, although we understand they may arise unexpectedly. As a precautionary measure, we’ve developed a comprehensive and adaptable solution. Should another instance of the ‘Cookie Monster Banner Issue’ occur, simply clicking a checkbox will resolve the problem. As of now, this remains the most effective solution available, unless of course, someone decides to reinvent the checkbox.