This is pretty cool. I ran into issues like this before at work coding. The smallest changes can have big issues down the line, especially if there is no regression testing in place. On a similar note, one of my biggest pet peeves loosely typed languages. In the javascript example the dreaded var seems to be the cause of many bugs for lazy programmers.
RE: Automatic compression when saving files in Pandas! How changing a default parameter ballooned into a monster PR.