ProgrammerHumor
gottaOptimize
Discussion
Nice
We use this all the time at work.
The comic? I've referenced it more than once...
It's a really easy way to decide whether to automate or not, and to talk people out of the idea to automate.
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
Im not automating because its faster, im automating because i keep messing it up
But you've learned something new and had fun.
But now i can make AI do it but fuck it up and it'll take me 30 minutes instead of 15
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.
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.
They just posted a study that found using AI slows you down by up to 20%. So, while it feels faster and easier, it may only really be the latter.
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.
Make it then put it on github.
Who knows how many people might have the same weird specific problem.
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.
Speak the Holy Creedo: If you have to do it more than twice automate it.
i play Factorio to scratch that itch
But what if though, right?
When the task has to be repeated atleast 9 times its worth it
I once created a python script for compiling documents on parallel using latex. Huge waste of time, but man was it worth it.
The problem with tasks youll never need to do again, is youll be asked to do them again in the near future
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.
What do you mean „resisting“? there is no way I‘m not trying to
Two hours? Amateur. Try 18 hours then double it.
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”)
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
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.
I'm in this picture and I didn't like it
I've been doing a stupid daily task that could easily be automated for the past 5 years soooooo.
But those 15 minutes of a repetitive task feel like 15 hours.
Or the 2 hours spent writing the script feel like 10 minutes
Both.
Plus, the unspoken potential cost of errors when 15 minutes of drudgery is done by hand.
But the script will have unit tests. the manual task won’t.