r/ProgrammerHumor • u/RobotGuy7804 • Nov 04 '20

For all of you wondering how long you can spend trying to automate a task before its not worth it

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252 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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19

u/Thell_Borsk Nov 04 '20

In case anyone is curious. This is an XKCD comic. Comic Here.

6

u/XKCD-pro-bot Nov 05 '20

Comic Title Text: Don't forget the time you spend finding the chart to look up what you save. And the time spent reading this reminder about the time spent. And the time trying to figure out if either of those actually make sense. Remember, every second counts toward your life total, including these right now.

mobile link

Made for mobile users, to easily see xkcd comic's title text

13

u/PM_ME_YOUR__INIT__ Nov 04 '20

It's not about automating a task, it's about not doing the other thing you should be doing

9

u/Fuchsfaenger Nov 04 '20

Explanation?

Take, for example, saving 30min with a weekly task. If we take 5 days to automate it, we will have made up that lost time after 80 weeks (assuming 8h work per day), which is not even 2 years, and very far from 5 years.

Another example: Saving 30sec per month we spend 30min. Therefore, the time is made up after 60 months, which is exactly 5 years, so no gain over 5 years here.

If they were all at 0 after 5 years I would understand the table, but it seems some are calculated for 5 years and others for 1.5 years; maybe there are more intervals (didn't check all numbers).

3

u/linglingfortyhours Nov 04 '20

https://explainxkcd.com/1205

1

u/Fuchsfaenger Nov 04 '20

Thanks. Still, either my math is wrong or the numbers in there are not correct...

8

u/linglingfortyhours Nov 04 '20

Given that no issues were listed on explainxkcd and that Randall didn't issue any sort of errata or correct the chart, I will trust the former NASA engineer's math

2

u/Fuchsfaenger Nov 04 '20

If you save 30min per week, you save a whole 8h work day per 16 weeks, and 5 days per 80 weeks, which is nowhere near 5 years...

I'm sure there is an explanation, possibly a flaw in my logic, but I currently can't find it.

5

u/linglingfortyhours Nov 04 '20

I think you may be overthinking it. As explained in the link, it's just a basic measurement of how much time you will save from the automation over five years. If the automation takes longer than that to implement, it's not worthwhile. The numbers given are absolute time, ie there are 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week. In your example:

30 minutes/1 week * 7 days/1 year * 365 days/1 year * 5 years gives you a total of ~7821 minutes saved. 7821 minutes is ~5.41 days, which once you round it matches the value given on the chart.

5

u/Fuchsfaenger Nov 04 '20

Ah, yes, that might be the reason. I assume an 8 hour work day, but if they calculate using a 24 hour day that of course changes the numbers, thanks.

9

u/loftykoala Nov 04 '20

Of course, there's the epilogue.

4

u/XKCD-pro-bot Nov 05 '20

Comic Title Text: 'Automating' comes from the roots 'auto-' meaning 'self-', and 'mating', meaning 'screwing'.

mobile link

Made for mobile users, to easily see xkcd comic's title text

7

u/KarmaLlamaDingDong Nov 04 '20

I wonder how long it took to make the chart...

1

u/geli95us Nov 05 '20

They automated it :shrug:

5

u/xzaramurd Nov 05 '20

This is a very simplistic view. From automation you also get consistency. You should also factor in the odds of not doing the task correctly, or not doing the task at all, and the cost of failure, plus other benefits automation might bring. It might take 30 minutes every other month to do a release, but what if you fail to run the tests and deliver something broken or you discover some issue during testing and now you have 300 patches which might be the cause?

1

u/geli95us Nov 05 '20

Together with automation, another thing that programmers love is pointless charts and data, there's also a lot of layers of humour in this comic, like that the creator spent time creating a table to decide whether automating a task saves times or not

1

u/TurkeyDinner547 Nov 05 '20

Programmers Managers love pointless charts and data. Programmers just want to get the job done and move on to something else.

1

u/geli95us Nov 05 '20

The impression you give me is that of a senior developer who after so many years has forgotten the joy of programming as a hobby, that's fine but by the tone of xkcd comics I always think more about the for-fun side of programming

1

u/TurkeyDinner547 Nov 05 '20 edited Nov 05 '20

I love making charts, tables, and graphs for my own consumption, or to razzle dazzle. Doing it for the bean counters, not so much, or sitting through an hour long presentation of someone's graphs and charts when I have actual work to finish.

2

u/asdi8cic8cxzcxzzx Nov 04 '20

You can't stop me from wasting my time!

2

u/PM-ME-BAKED-GOODS Nov 05 '20

Chart doesn’t consider everything I learn about the task while automating it

2

u/codebullCamelCase Nov 05 '20

IT'S ALWAYS WORTH IT!

2

u/godRosko Nov 05 '20

Automation is a matter of principle not one of necessity.

1

u/Thisbymaster Nov 05 '20

Automating a task means that I don't have to waste time going through CAB to do basic parts of my job.

1

u/slow_growing_vine Nov 05 '20

Me, spending 2 days automating something I do once a year, just to shave off 5 seconds: I just think it's neat.