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Re:CLUI: Building a Graphical Command Line by vz8 on Thursday March 05, 2020 @09:09PM (#22500442)
XKCD's "Is it worth the time"[1] grid seems appropriate here. Amazing how often I keep coming back to it, and how it really does play out.

[1] https://xkcd.com/1205/

Re:CLUI: Building a Graphical Command Line by atoav on Friday March 06, 2020 @01:09AM (#22501345)
A classic. However I like to note: sometimes it is also worth shaving something off that just annoys you, even if it doesn't take that much longer.

Annoyances are a bit harder to quantify, but they also add up over the weeks.

Re:CLUI: Building a Graphical Command Line by dspillett on Friday March 06, 2020 @04:36AM (#22502217)
Annoyances have an effect beyond the time they take up: by definition they hang about taking a little bit of mental energy away from subsequent tasks.
Re:CLUI: Building a Graphical Command Line by rijoja on Friday March 06, 2020 @07:36AM (#22503088)
yeah and humans short term memory is quite limited also automating away these small things reduces the risk of human error.
Re:CLUI: Building a Graphical Command Line by lonelappde on Friday March 06, 2020 @07:40AM (#22503103)
Trivial annoyances can be fixed by CBT (fixing your brain to not overeact), without needing to spend time fighting the world.
Re:CLUI: Building a Graphical Command Line by kortex on Friday March 06, 2020 @08:11AM (#22503254)
Ha. I've been trying to fix my brain with CBT to not overreact for...20? years now.

Sometimes it is just easier to fight the world.

I feel my drive to de-frustrate the world make me a better engineer/designer.

Re:CLUI: Building a Graphical Command Line by dgb23 on Friday March 06, 2020 @08:46AM (#22503456)
I agree, fixing and creating things is what we do. It makes us happier and better.

Another demotivating argument one might hear often is that building X, learning Y or using Z has no business value because there already exists something that you could do/use.

That argument makes sense if your primary concern is to solve a particular domain problem AKA you are a 'business person'. But a craftsman/engineer/designer etc. Your primary value comes from your skills and knowledge.

Re:CLUI: Building a Graphical Command Line by dgb23 on Friday March 06, 2020 @08:37AM (#22503409)
A couple of useful additions would be:

1. You can multiply the number by amount of users of your automation.

2. If your automation is valuable to others you gain social attraction or financial leverage or both/similar.

I'm a programmer first and foremost, so the following things are true in my case as well:

3. Automating a task can lead to learning valuable lessons about: automation itself, the task, any tools/languages you use to automate it. This cannot be encoded easily and is not deterministic. As a programmer learning new skills, improving my craft and gaining pieces of domain knowledge is my primary way of investment.

4. Enjoyment of doing the automation, non-deterministic value.

5. Avoiding suffering, the task might not be time consuming but "hard".

Good examples of 5:

* interfaces or synchronizations of values that are not failure proof, so you need to concentrate, which is taxing.

* the task is boring it itself (often the case)

* the task is associated with boring/stressful/generally negative things.