Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by chipsrafferty on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @02:42PM
(#45673383)
I'd love to see a cost benefit analysis of the author's approach vs yours, which includes the time it took the author to create the scripts, remember/learn to use them/reference them when forgetting syntax, plus time spent migrating whenever changing systems.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by te_cima on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @03:00PM
(#45673616)
why is this interesting to you? the whole point of doing all of this is to be more efficient in the long run. of course there is an initial setup cost and learning curve after which you will hopefully feel quite efficient with your development environment. you are making it sound like it is not worth the effort because you have to potentially spend time learning "it"? i do not believe that it takes long to "learning" it, but of course it can differ a lot from person to person. your remarks seem like non-issues to me.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by akersten on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @03:04PM
(#45673661)
It's interesting because there's a significant chance one wastes more time tinkering around with custom scripts than saving in the long run. See https://xkcd.com/1205/
For example. The "saves 5 seconds task that I do once a month" from the blog post. Hopefully the author did not spend more than 5 minutes writing said script and maintaining it, or they're losing time in the long run.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by kelvinjps10 on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @03:38PM
(#45674114)
I find that now with AI, you can make scripts very quickly, reducing the time to write them by a lot. There is still some time needed for prompting and testing but still.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by skydhash on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @07:01PM
(#45676239)
Sometimes, you explore to have ideas. By fixing a few problems like these, you learn about technologies that can help you in another situation.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by duskdozer on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @09:11PM
(#45677094)
Maybe, but
1. even if it costs more time, it could also save more annoyance which could be a benefit
2. by publishing the scripts, anyone else who comes across them can use them and save time without the initial cost. similarly, making and sharing these can encourage others to share their own scripts, some of which the author could save time with
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by chipsrafferty on Thursday October 23, 2025 @11:24PM
(#45690432)
In my experience, it's not "maybe" but "almost certainly" which is why I stopped doing this. Every time I get a new system I would have to set everything up again, it's not cross platform, doesn't work when using someone else's computer, suddenly breaks for some reason or another, or you forget it exists...
The annoyance of all these factors for outweighs the benefits, in my experience. It's just that the scripts feel good at first and the annoyance doesn't come until later and eventually you abandon them.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by yellowapple on Friday October 24, 2025 @03:09PM
(#45698073)
> Every time I get a new system I would have to set everything up again
Sounds like something you could automate with a script :)
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by janalsncm on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @11:47PM
(#45677970)
Not all time is created equally though, so I disagree with that xkcd.
If something is time sensitive it is worth spending a disproportionate amount of time to speed things up at some later time. For example if you’re debugging something live, in a live presentation, working on something with a tight deadline etc.
Also you don’t necessarily know how often you’ll do something anyways.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by normie3000 on Thursday October 23, 2025 @04:09AM
(#45679421)
> I disagree with that xkcd
The xkcd doesn't seem to be pushing an agenda, just providing a lookup table. Time spent vs time saved is factual.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by janalsncm on Thursday October 23, 2025 @04:32PM
(#45686703)
The title of the comic is “ Is It Worth the Time?”.
To take a concrete example, if I spend 30 minutes on a task every six months, over 5 years that’s 5 hours of “work” hours. So the implication is that it’s not worth automating if it takes more than 5 hours to automate.
But if those are 5 hours of application downtime, it’s pretty clearly worth it even if I have to spend way more than 5 hours to reduce downtime.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by yellowapple on Friday October 24, 2025 @03:42PM
(#45698359)
Time saved also ain't the only factor here. I'll often automate something not because it actually saves a lot of time, but rather because it codifies an error-prone process and having it scripted out reduces the risk of human error by enough of a degree to be worth spending more time on it than I'd save.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by latexr on Thursday October 23, 2025 @04:32AM
(#45679566)
One thing which is often ignored in these discussions is the experience you gain. The time you “wasted” on your previous scripts by taking longer to write them compounds in time saved in the future because you can now write more complex tasks faster.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by dbalatero on Thursday October 23, 2025 @11:34AM
(#45683052)
The problem is, to really internalize that benefit, one would need to have an open mind to trying things out, and many folks seem to resist that. Oh well, more brain connections for me I suppose.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by r4tionalistmind on Thursday October 23, 2025 @05:46AM
(#45680042)
>YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. I NEED TO BE CONSTANTLY OPTIMIZING MY UPTIME. THE SCIENCE DEMANDS IT. TIMEMAXXING. I CAN'T FREELY EXPLORE OR BRAINSTORM, IT'S NOT XKCD 1205 COMPLIANT. I MUST EVALUATE EVERY PROPOSED ACTIVITY AGAINST THE TIME-OPTIMIZATION-PIVOT-TABLE.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by chipsrafferty on Thursday October 23, 2025 @11:22PM
(#45690412)
Because some of them OP said they use a few times a year. This means they'll probably use it like 150 times in their life. If it saves a minute each time, but it takes 5 hours to create it and 5 hours to maintain it over the years, then it's not really a win.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by karczex on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @05:21PM
(#45675300)
Sometimes it's rather matter of sanity than time management. I once created systemd service which goes to company web page and downloads some files which I sometimes need. This script was pretty hacky, and writing it took me a lot of time - probably more than clicking manually on this page in the long run. But clicking it so annoying, that I feel it was totally worth.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by taejavu on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @05:55PM
(#45675648)
Not all time is created equal. I’ll happily invest more time than I’ll ever get back in refining a script or vim config or whatever, so that later, when I’m busy and don’t have time to muck around, I can stay in the flow and not be annoyed by distractions.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by latexr on Thursday October 23, 2025 @04:26AM
(#45679526)
> reference them when forgetting syntax
If you have to do that, the script needs improvement. Always add a `--help` which explains what it does and what arguments it takes.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by tom_ on Thursday October 23, 2025 @08:14AM
(#45680957)
If you write these sorts of things in Python, argparse is worth investigating: https://docs.python.org/3/library/argparse.html - it's pretty easy to use, makes it easy to separate the command line handling from the rest of the code, and, importantly, will generate a --help page for you. And if you want something it can't do, you can still always write the code yourself!
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by latexr on Thursday October 23, 2025 @08:55AM
(#45681251)
I don’t like Python in general, but even so I’ll say that argparse is indeed very nice. When I was writing ruby, I always felt that OptionParser¹ wasn’t as good. Swift has Argument Parser², officially from Apple, which is quite featureful. For shell, I have a a couple of bespoke patterns I have been reusing in every script for many years.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by yellowapple on Friday October 24, 2025 @03:06PM
(#45698043)
Many years ago I wrote a library I called “Ruby on Bales”¹ specifically due to my frustrations with the state of command-line argument parsing for Ruby scripts. I haven't touched it in a long while; maybe I should revisit it.
----
Regarding other ports, I've also been pretty happy with https://github.com/nodeca/argparse, which works nicely from Typescript. Looks like it hasn't been updated for a while, but it's not like there's a great deal wrong with it.
https://github.com/p-ranav/argparse is a single-file argparse for Modern C++, which means it's typically straightforward, if baffling in places and a bit annoying to step through in the debugger.
The nice thing about the argparse ports is that provided they take their job seriously, your programs will all end up with a vaguely consistent command line UX in terms of longopt syntax, and, importantly, a --help page.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by fragmede on Wednesday October 22, 2025 @05:20PM
(#45675288)
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/fliptheweb/bash-shortcuts-... has served me very well.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by mlrtime on Thursday October 23, 2025 @07:49AM
(#45680763)
Wow thanks, I'm tattooing this on my right hand now. :)
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by kevinrineer on Thursday October 23, 2025 @04:17PM
(#45686512)
No one tell him about `set editing-mode vi` or `info readline`
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by mlrtime on Thursday October 23, 2025 @06:04PM
(#45687909)
I use emacs
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by yellowapple on Friday October 24, 2025 @03:45PM
(#45698392)
One of the very few things I like about macOS is that it rebinds the CUA key from Ctrl to Cmd, freeing up Ctrl for these Emacs-style text navigation keybinds. It's odd to me that seemingly zero Linux distros/DEs do this by default.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by klaussilveira on Thursday October 23, 2025 @08:19AM
(#45680991)
This is one of the things I miss the most about hacker conferences. The sharing of tools, scripts, tips and tricks. It was, and still is, just as fun as trading cards.
What's a hacker conference?
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by yellowapple on Friday October 24, 2025 @02:56PM
(#45697926)
A conference in which hackers congregate.
My favorite recent one was Handmade Seattle, but that one's kaput as of this year, and it seems everything else along similar lines is overseas and/or invite-only.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by freedomben on Thursday October 23, 2025 @02:18PM
(#45685043)
I love this kind of stuff too, but too many times over the years I've found myself in environments without some of these higher level and more niche tools (including my own dot files), or the tool ends up abandoned, and I struggle to remember how to use the basics/builtins. I've gotten a lot more conservative about adopting them because of that.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by bityard on Thursday October 23, 2025 @04:40PM
(#45686801)
Pretty much my take as well. I imagine spending a few hours a month customizing your shell and text editor (hello vim/Emacs folks) to be more efficient and powerful is _great_ for developers who rarely leave their own workstation. But I spend much of my day logging into random hosts that don't have my custom shell scripts and aliases, so I'm actively careful not to fill my muscle memory with custom shortcuts and the like.
Of course, I _do_ have some custom shell scripts and aliases, but these are only for things I will ever do locally.
Re:Scripts I wrote that I use all the time
by djtriptych on Thursday October 23, 2025 @02:22PM
(#45685085)
Loved it too. Made me want to write a schema for other developers to add (tool, frequency_of_use, category, description) tuples.
What's always interesting to me is how many of these I'll see and initially think, "I don't really need that." Because I'm well aware of the effect (which I'm sure has a name - I suppose it's similar to induced demand) of "make $uncommon_task much cheaper" -> "$uncommon_task becomes the basis of an entirely new workflow/skill". So I'm going to try out most of them and see what sticks!
Also: really love the style of the post. It's very clear but also includes super valuable information about how often the author actually uses each script, to get a sense ahead of time for which ones are more likely to trigger the effect described above.
A final aside about my own workflows which betrays my origins... for some of these operations and for others i occasionally need, I'll just open a browser dev tools window and use JS to do it, for example lowercasing a string :)