Do-nothing scripting: the key to gradual automation (2019)
This is the way. I wish this were taught in computer science class, development bootcamps, operations team onboarding, anywhere there is a procedure that is even slightly complicated to automate. It is the absolute best solution there is.<p>* Documentation of the entire procedure is contained in one place. No need to go sifting through 20 different sources of documentation. This lowers the human emotional barrier to &quot;just get it done&quot;, as people will always avoid things they aren&#x27;t comfortable&#x2F;familiar with, or don&#x27;t have all the steps to. This central point of documentation also enables rapidly improving the process by letting people see all the steps in one place, which makes it easier to fix&#x2F;collapse&#x2F;remove steps.<p>* Automation in small pieces over time avoids the trap of &quot;a project&quot; where one or more engineers have to be dedicated to this one task for a long period of time. Most things shouldn&#x27;t be automated unless there is demonstrably greater value in the cost of automating them than the cost of not doing so. Automating only the most valuable&#x2F;costly pieces first gives immediate gains without sinking too much into the entire thing.<p>* One unified &quot;method&quot; to encapsulate any kind of process means your organization can ramp up on processes easier, reducing overall organizational cost.<p>* In the absence of any other similar process, you are <i>guaranteed</i> to save time and money.<p>I would say that the only potential downside is if someone decides to &quot;engineer&quot; this method, making it more and more and more complicated, until it loses its value. KISS is a requirement for it to be sustainable.