The First Time I Used Programming At Work

Re:The First Time I Used Programming At Work by dons on Tuesday May 15, 2012 @10:24PM (#3980079)

It's a mindset that's rarely taught: if you have a problem, and you're not writing code to find the solution, you're probably wasting effort.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The First Time I Used Programming At Work by shabble on Wednesday May 16, 2012 @10:29AM (#3982154)

"I spent 10 hours making a system to perform this 1-hour task in 5 minutes!"

Note that this only pays off if that task occurs frequently enough to offset the upfront programming cost.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The First Time I Used Programming At Work by eru on Wednesday May 16, 2012 @10:31AM (#3982164)

Yes. But you can also waste lots of time creating code, when just doing it quick, dirty and manual is faster.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The First Time I Used Programming At Work by thenonsequitur on Sunday May 20, 2012 @01:52PM (#3999475)

I agree.

But I'd add that even tasks that only require a quick-and-dirty solution can frequently benefit from quick-and-dirty automation. A few throw-away lines in an interpreter environment like irb, for example can often shave several minutes of certain tasks, and throwing a lit bit of code into such tasks can certainly make some otherwise dull processes more interesting.

[ Parent | on HN ]