Do-nothing scripting: the key to gradual automation
Do-nothing scripting: the key to gradual automation
Every ops team has some manual procedures that they haven’t gotten around to automating yet. Toil can never be totally eliminated. Very often, the biggest toil center for a team at a growing …
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TLDR:
What the author baptizes "do-nothing scripts" are interactive scripts that print out the steps of some procedure one by one and wait for you to confirm each step (eg. "1. do this. press enter when done" "2. do something else. press enter when done" and so forth).
PS:
@OP (if you are the author)
I HATE those sites where popups come up when you are halfway reading something.
What's the idea behind it, besides annoying your users as much as possible?
They kind of glossed over the real value, which is using it as a template to automate a step at a time:
"Each step of the procedure is now encapsulated in a function, which makes it possible to replace the text in any given step with code that performs the action automatically."
It breaks the work down into more manageable tasks. I probably wouldn't give it to users until it was done, but putting placeholder functions is a common strategy.
Not my site, just sharing a link I saw on HN.
I HATE those sites where popups come up when you are halfway reading something.
Agreed, if I did want to sign up it would be when I've finished, not when I'm trying to read your own bloody content. I often sign up using their own domain with something like sales@ or something ruder. Petty, but it's a small vent. and if one person stops because of it I can die happy.