6 ms·

Automate the boring parts of your job

39 points by tybulewicz 4y ago

yarg 4y ago
It actually amazes me the degree to which people just don't realise that what they are doing can be automated - even in software companies. I caught my manager one day, manually traversing application screens taking screenshots and then clipping them down to size. At least an hour's work, with each and every release (or at least those with configuration changes). "Raise a ticket, I can do that automatically." An hour later I sent her back the task for testing - now taking mere seconds, and with pixel perfect clipping. It never even occurred to her to ask if that was something I could do.
- mandeepj 4y ago
  > "Raise a ticket, I can do that automatically." Can you elaborate what you did? One option I can think of - Selenium like UI testing\navigation tool and taking screenshots?
  - yarg 4y ago
    It was a swing application (the company's deployment tooling). I ran through the configuration definitions and for each element created a BufferedImage the preferred size of the associated component. Then I rendered the component to the BufferedImage using BufferedImage::getGraphics, and Component::paint. Then I saved the image as <definition>.PNG. Nothing magical.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  Why have we ended up in a place where a developer is asking a manager to raise a ticket so they are allowed to create something only she will see. What happens if you just did it without the ticket?
  - ElCapitanMarkla 4y ago
    Could just be so you have a ticket to record time against.
  - yarg 4y ago
    For the commit message, for time-keeping, in order to assign it back to her when the changes were made.
tayo42 4y ago
How do i automate going to status update meetings?
- solardev 4y ago
  Convince your team to use async updates on Slack or whatever. Or just deepfake your face and voice and give it a new prompt every day.
jnash 4y ago
Having great end-to-end tests are awesome for this exact reason. I spend 99% of my time adding new cool features instead of fixing bugs. While people I work with spend all their time complaining and moaning about all the bugs that keeps popping up in their production code.
Bnichs 4y ago
In my experience in larger software companies, the hardest part of automation is convincing management that it's worth it to stop other development for long enough to automate a problem away. A lot of managers are fine throwing people at a problem if it means meeting a date and making the team look good while under the hood all the knobs are being turned by hands by an ever struggling staff. And then the worst case I've found myself in is where the people you hire specifically to automate are told to do things manually at first "until we get the automation out." Then you end up in a constant cycle of promising automation that will never exist because all of the workload is falling to the automators who have no time to fix anything.
tybulewicz 4y ago
Obligatory XKCDs: - Is It Worth The Time? https://xkcd.com/1205/ https://xkcd.com/1205/ - Automation https://xkcd.com/1319/ https://xkcd.com/1319/
- ozim 4y ago
  That is why I went for totally stupid-silly automations. I don't write "reusable" automations - I don't write scripts with parameters. I write a lot of scripts where I open it in notepad to edit and fill in variables. Most of the times I just put copies of these scripts on specific servers and have variables filled in. Variables need to change only if I change server or really change config of a server which is almost never. This way "Automation" xkcd "Theory" fits reality. Because then instead of rehearsing commands and what was the configuration I just go to the server and run the script and instead 30mins simple task takes me 2 mins.
- jt2190 4y ago
  XKCD 1319 gets the economics of automation wrong because it makes the assumption that you value the time spent on every activity the same, in particular that you equally value drudge work and programming. The reality (for me at least, and I’m sure for others) is that I’d much rather be writing a program than doing drudge work.
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  XKCD 1205 is completely wrong because it fails to account for the fact that manual work tends to introduce random errors into the mix which are difficult to reverse. Whereas if automation is well designed, it's often very possible to correct any errors you made in the automation, and once you get it right it will always be right. The other thing is that a task that takes 30 seconds doesn't just take 30 seconds, the context switch is actually quite a burden and even just having to remember to do the thing.
  - ipaddr 4y ago
    With an error rate of 10% Would you rather have 10% errors each time or 10% of the time the script has an error and could wipe everything out. Every place I've worked with accepts 10% returns, 10% of visitors leaving immediately, 10% of a customer's data being incorrect somehow. Very few accept perfect flawless followed by completely breaking everything 1/10 times.

39 points by tybulewicz 4y ago

yarg 4y ago

It actually amazes me the degree to which people just don't realise that what they are doing can be automated - even in software companies. I caught my manager one day, manually traversing application screens taking screenshots and then clipping them down to size. At least an hour's work, with each and every release (or at least those with configuration changes). "Raise a ticket, I can do that automatically." An hour later I sent her back the task for testing - now taking mere seconds, and with pixel perfect clipping. It never even occurred to her to ask if that was something I could do.

mandeepj 4y ago
> "Raise a ticket, I can do that automatically." Can you elaborate what you did? One option I can think of - Selenium like UI testing\navigation tool and taking screenshots?
- yarg 4y ago
  It was a swing application (the company's deployment tooling). I ran through the configuration definitions and for each element created a BufferedImage the preferred size of the associated component. Then I rendered the component to the BufferedImage using BufferedImage::getGraphics, and Component::paint. Then I saved the image as <definition>.PNG. Nothing magical.
ipaddr 4y ago
Why have we ended up in a place where a developer is asking a manager to raise a ticket so they are allowed to create something only she will see. What happens if you just did it without the ticket?
- ElCapitanMarkla 4y ago
  Could just be so you have a ticket to record time against.
- yarg 4y ago
  For the commit message, for time-keeping, in order to assign it back to her when the changes were made.

tayo42 4y ago

How do i automate going to status update meetings?

solardev 4y ago
Convince your team to use async updates on Slack or whatever. Or just deepfake your face and voice and give it a new prompt every day.

jnash 4y ago

Having great end-to-end tests are awesome for this exact reason. I spend 99% of my time adding new cool features instead of fixing bugs. While people I work with spend all their time complaining and moaning about all the bugs that keeps popping up in their production code.

Bnichs 4y ago

In my experience in larger software companies, the hardest part of automation is convincing management that it's worth it to stop other development for long enough to automate a problem away. A lot of managers are fine throwing people at a problem if it means meeting a date and making the team look good while under the hood all the knobs are being turned by hands by an ever struggling staff. And then the worst case I've found myself in is where the people you hire specifically to automate are told to do things manually at first "until we get the automation out." Then you end up in a constant cycle of promising automation that will never exist because all of the workload is falling to the automators who have no time to fix anything.

tybulewicz 4y ago

Obligatory XKCDs: - Is It Worth The Time? https://xkcd.com/1205/ https://xkcd.com/1205/ - Automation https://xkcd.com/1319/ https://xkcd.com/1319/

ozim 4y ago
That is why I went for totally stupid-silly automations. I don't write "reusable" automations - I don't write scripts with parameters. I write a lot of scripts where I open it in notepad to edit and fill in variables. Most of the times I just put copies of these scripts on specific servers and have variables filled in. Variables need to change only if I change server or really change config of a server which is almost never. This way "Automation" xkcd "Theory" fits reality. Because then instead of rehearsing commands and what was the configuration I just go to the server and run the script and instead 30mins simple task takes me 2 mins.
jt2190 4y ago
XKCD 1319 gets the economics of automation wrong because it makes the assumption that you value the time spent on every activity the same, in particular that you equally value drudge work and programming. The reality (for me at least, and I’m sure for others) is that I’d much rather be writing a program than doing drudge work.
faeriechangling 4y ago
XKCD 1205 is completely wrong because it fails to account for the fact that manual work tends to introduce random errors into the mix which are difficult to reverse. Whereas if automation is well designed, it's often very possible to correct any errors you made in the automation, and once you get it right it will always be right. The other thing is that a task that takes 30 seconds doesn't just take 30 seconds, the context switch is actually quite a burden and even just having to remember to do the thing.
- ipaddr 4y ago
  With an error rate of 10% Would you rather have 10% errors each time or 10% of the time the script has an error and could wipe everything out. Every place I've worked with accepts 10% returns, 10% of visitors leaving immediately, 10% of a customer's data being incorrect somehow. Very few accept perfect flawless followed by completely breaking everything 1/10 times.