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A comment on Ask HN: For those programming 10+ years, what do you wish you knew 4 years in?. Parent comment

Re:Ask HN: For those programming 10+ years, what do you wish... by e28eta on Thursday May 18, 2017 @11:49AM (#14368254)
I printed this XKCD specifically to remind myself that some things aren't worth automating!

https://xkcd.com/1205/

On the other hand, sometimes you're automating for reasons other than time savings. Maybe reproducibility or auditability.

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Re:Ask HN: For those programming 10+ years, what do you wish... by nocman on Thursday May 18, 2017 @12:54PM (#14368851)
Or the fact that the task is so mundane/boring/annoying/irritating (pick an applicable adjective) that it's worth it to you to spend a day automating it so you never have to do it again.
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Re:Ask HN: For those programming 10+ years, what do you wish... by tronbabylove on Thursday May 18, 2017 @12:49PM (#14368791)
Great point - the benefits of automation can't always be reduced to time saved per operation. I wrote a blog post [1] about this in response to that xkcd.

[1] https://andrewstahlman.com/posts/IsItWorthTheTime.html

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