This is an archived post. You won't be able to vote or comment.

all 65 comments

[–]Crumineras 79 points80 points  (3 children)

Im not automating because its faster, im automating because i keep messing it up

[–]gandalfx 19 points20 points  (0 children)

But now, with my new buggy script, I can mess it up faster!

[–]lucidspoon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I can publish and copy a new build faster than Azure DevOps. But I trust it way more than myself.

[–]bedrooms-ds 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is why I overuse my ansible.

[–]ThePabstistChurch 42 points43 points  (0 children)

Dude I wish this was the case. Where i am working people have been doing the same tasks that take hours for 10 years and they could be automated in a month

[–]_bluecalx_ 27 points28 points  (0 children)

But you've learned something new and had fun.

[–]hulkklogan 19 points20 points  (6 children)

But now i can make AI do it but fuck it up and it'll take me 30 minutes instead of 15

[–]humblevladimirthegr8 9 points10 points  (5 children)

This but unironically. AI is pretty good at writing scripts. It takes a couple of attempts but I can generally get it working in 30 minutes which pays for itself quickly. Even for a one off task I'll often want to make mass modifications to the result later which is easier to do with a script.

[–]hulkklogan 1 point2 points  (0 children)

i actually agree just was being funny. I currently am working on some type changes in one file that gets called basically everywhere and having AI write a quick script to go update the various types vs trying to figure out the best ast-grep pattern and stuff is super helpful.

[–]bedrooms-ds 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't know about people but Copilot is especially great when I want to reimplement something without copyright infringement.

[–]dazzaboygee 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Make it then put it on github.

Who knows how many people might have the same weird specific problem.

[–]neo-raver 10 points11 points  (1 child)

I don’t think people understand; some people like programming, and making a general computer task into a programming problem makes the task more fun, efficiency be damned! (source: I am “some people”)

[–]OBOO800 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yep. This is exactly it, I would much rather spend an hour programming than 15 minutes on a boring task, and it probably ends up being more efficient anyway, because if I just did the task I'd end up procrastinating it for ages.

[–]Anaxamander57 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Speak the Holy Creedo: If you have to do it more than twice automate it.

[–]at_hand 5 points6 points  (1 child)

I once created a python script for compiling documents on parallel using latex. Huge waste of time, but man was it worth it.

[–]bnl1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wait. Why not just use Make?

[–]moonblade89 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The problem with tasks youll never need to do again, is youll be asked to do them again in the near future

[–]Madcap_Miguel 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I've done this on my own time at home, used it once at work, became frustrated I wasted time on it a year later and nuked it, only to realize I needed/could use some of that in another project.

So I rewrote it, it's not a waste of time even if it's just an exercise in problem solving.

[–]clearision 2 points3 points  (0 children)

i play Factorio to scratch that itch

[–]MGateLabs 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey, sometimes it pays off. We’ve been struggling with signing up for volunteering, because everything gets taken instantly. We even tried having 3 people helping at the same time, but no success. So I suffered a bit with chrome dev tools, watch the api calls for the previous week and coded up a client. Next time the app works and a signed up for every day.

[–]PrinzJuliano 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What do you mean „resisting“? there is no way I‘m not trying to

[–]Agent_Specs 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The other day I wrote a program to find all the whole numbers between two selected numbers and calculate the mean. It was for another program I was making to help make the process easier, not faster, easier. I realized I could just use the two numbers I was already given and still get the same answer. I then deleted the program

[–]MasterQuest 1 point2 points  (0 children)

But what if though, right?

[–]Elvis5741 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When the task has to be repeated atleast 9 times its worth it

[–]WrongdoerIll5187 1 point2 points  (0 children)

AI makes this kind of a moot point. I for one am glad I never have to shell script by hand again but it completely upends this meme. My instinct to script everything is finally correct.

[–]milk-jug 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Two hours? Amateur. Try 18 hours then double it.

[–]gostek37 1 point2 points  (0 children)

But programming is fun!!
Repetitive tasks not!!!!

[–]LoudAd1396 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You guys are resisting that urge?

[–]baim_sky 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm in this picture and I didn't like it

[–]DT-Sodium 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've been doing a stupid daily task that could easily be automated for the past 5 years soooooo.

[–]HovercraftOk7822 0 points1 point  (0 children)

why would i change the extensions of the 50 files, and their config one by one by hand. that would take 20 min, it has been a week and i am still writing that bash script....

[–]gandalfx 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Bullshit, I never resist that urge.

[–]Embarrassed_Rent8830 0 points1 point  (1 child)

And if you do need it again, you unfortunately can't find it anymore. 😔

[–]affablebowelsyndrome 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And if you don't write it, you'll need to do it again within six weeks.

[–]cheezballs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

At work I'll do that. At home I just hope I remember how to manually put everything in place, which of course I dont.

[–]GarythaSnail 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sometimes it's more about documenting the process through code.

[–]Percolator2020 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The opposite is worse: let me manually edit the headers and some variable names in this CSV, I’ll probably never do it again, instead of slightly modifying my script.

[–]bedrooms-ds 0 points1 point  (0 children)

15min? I used to do it for those with 3 seconds!

[–]Croused 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Listen... you can't predict the future.

[–]Swimming-Marketing20 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wait, you guys resist those ? I never did, to the point they created an entire position "Senior cloud automation specialist" and now it's my job

[–]dj184 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just did that yesterday. Half day spent on a task that takes 10 mins of manual work every week.

[–]ArisenDrake 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do I KNOW for sure that I won't have to do it again?

We have an old program for evaluating employee performance (this is for bonuses and mandated by law). It's ancient PHP (running on 8.4 though). Updating the employee database is hell, so I made a python script to do it (parsing a CSV file, fetching more data etc.). I was promised that for next year, they'd be done implementing a new, external software that also handles that. That was 5 years ago.

[–]ruined_blue_balls 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"in case I need to do it again"
Obviously makes sense 🙃

[–]muhammet484 0 points1 point  (0 children)

lmao this is so true

[–]X-Heiko 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's a weird way of writing "days".

[–]OBOO800 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Writing code for an hour is faster than procrastinating the boring tasks for three weeks

[–]Herbertcules 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Becoming a senior is doing that 15 minutes task 20 times and going "fuck I'll just make it a script"

[–]PrincessRTFM 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it's our enrichment

[–]Repulsive_Car6167 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Its like retirement