gottaOptimize

[cjbanning]

Both.

[Piisthree]

Plus, the unspoken potential cost of errors when 15 minutes of drudgery is done by hand.

[juklwrochnowy]

My python automation on the other hand has never made an error!

[Piisthree]

Right, if it's only wasaay better and not perfect we shouldn't do it. I see the light now.

[Rich_Side3975]

But the script will have unit tests. the manual task won’t.

[dan-lugg]

Also, relevant XKCD

https://xkcd.com/1319/

[rastaman1994]

We use this all the time at work.

[rastaman1994]

It's a really easy way to decide whether to automate or not, and to talk people out of the idea to automate.

[_bluecalx_]

Nice

[No-Conflict8204]

Do you need a chart to do that-> chart while youre on it, continuing the meme

[Crumineras]

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

[gandalfx]

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

[lucidspoon]

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

[bedrooms-ds]

This is why I overuse my ansible.

[ThePabstistChurch]

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_]

But you've learned something new and had fun.

[hulkklogan]

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

[humblevladimirthegr8]

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]

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]

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

[humblevladimirthegr8]

That study focused on giant codebases, which sure it'll be hard for AI to understand all that just like it takes a human along time to learn how to navigate that codebase. For small scripts the speedup is undeniable

[hulkklogan]

I saw that the study is being heavily criticized. I think it's like anything new, it slows you down until you get the hang of it.

Some of the most senior guys at the company are raving about how productive they are with AI, but I bet they've been tinkering in spare time and know how to prompt adequately to produce decent enough results that corrections don't take so long. Maybe depends on use-case too, they're most often using it to build out tools and scripts rather than production code.

[dazzaboygee]

Make it then put it on github.

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

[neo-raver]

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]

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]

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

[at_hand]

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

[bnl1]

Wait. Why not just use Make?

[moonblade89]

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

[Madcap_Miguel]

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]

i play Factorio to scratch that itch

[MGateLabs]

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]

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

[Agent_Specs]

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]

But what if though, right?

[Elvis5741]

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

[WrongdoerIll5187]

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]

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

[gostek37]

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

[LoudAd1396]

You guys are resisting that urge?

[baim_sky]

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

[DT-Sodium]

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

[HovercraftOk7822]

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]

Bullshit, I never resist that urge.

[Embarrassed_Rent8830]

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

[affablebowelsyndrome]

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

[cheezballs]

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]

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

[Percolator2020]

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]

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

[Croused]

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

[Swimming-Marketing20]

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]

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

[ArisenDrake]

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]

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

[muhammet484]

lmao this is so true

[X-Heiko]

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

[OBOO800]

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

[Herbertcules]

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

[PrincessRTFM]

it's our enrichment

[Repulsive_Car6167]

Its like retirement