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Automate the boring parts of your job

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Re: Automate the boring parts of your job

#3

Post by ozim »

tybulewicz wrote: post #2

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

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.

Re: Automate the boring parts of your job

#4

Post by jt2190 »

tybulewicz wrote: post #2

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

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.

Re: Automate the boring parts of your job

#5

Post by yarg »

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.

Re: Automate the boring parts of your job

#6

Post by mandeepj »

yarg wrote: post #5

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…

> "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?

Re: Automate the boring parts of your job

#7

Post by yarg »

mandeepj wrote: post #6
yarg wrote: post #5

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…

> "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?

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 .PNG.

Nothing magical.

Re: Automate the boring parts of your job

#9

Post by jnash »

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.
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