Great story, but I don't think it qualifies as a nightmare. It's just a really interesting and challenging puzzle. The fact that the author elected to work on it for free ("This is nerd war") clearly places it in that category. If you can exit a nightmare, you exit the nightmare. Speaking for myself the only coder's nightmare I have is the one I think every coder has. It's the universal programmer nightmare: you don't really _know_ your stuff works, the way you can know that turning a key in a lock will open a door. Maybe you missed something. Maybe you didn't test something. Maybe it's going to break over the coming holiday weekend.