Do-nothing scripting: the key to gradual automation (2019)

I did this after seeing this before on HN. There were a few processes that were manual that benefitted from the technique in the article. Learn from my folly: I even called them “do nothing scripts,” referencing this article. However; I was judged by peers for not writing the full automation versions as they didn’t appreciate the idea of gradual automation (programmer hubris?). Saying “do nothing scripts” in meetings did catch the awkward attention of leadership. As a description, “do…

We use this at my place, though in bash, and we call it executable documentation. Stuff like: NAME="$1" # Create directory for the code mkdir "$NAME" # Checkout the source cd $NAME && git something # and so on Sometimes with an echo "You need to read and understand this before just using it"; exit 1 thrown in somewhere for good measure. These files will have no logic, and make very little use of variables. They will also have a…

I'm a big fan of this approach. In general it's another way of defining interfaces around processes. Those processes may be manually done or automated. But the interface can remain the same - this is quite powerful when it comes to automating steps. It's the same as you'd do with another system really. I've used this before with Google sheets being manually filled in -> automated with a script. And with Jira tickets being raised and then automatically picked up…