Today at work was one of those days that feels like it’s all just busy work. I need to make a little change here, then make a build for someone to run. Oops, it didn’t quite work, so I’ve got to do the steps again. A lot of the tedious steps are automated, but there are still a lot of pieces that end up being manual because there’s some sort of human decision or intervention needed.
It’s easy to get frustrated with the tedium, but looking back on it this evening, I am reminded that it’s also an opportunity to automate more, or find a simpler way to make it work. Instead of manually copying the right files into the right place, automate it with a script that chooses something reasonable (like the latest version) and ask for confirmation. It sounds so straightforward, but often when I look back at what I’m used to doing by rote, I find that there’s always a way to make the computer do more of the tedious work. Whether it’s worth the time to write such a script, now that’s another question.