Good day at work

[andrewducker]

I was tasked to take a file, copy it 50 times and make a change in each one to reflect the file number (file NQT001 was to be copied to NQT002...NQT050. Inside each file there were a few pointers that used the number of the file itself). This would take me, probably, a couple of hours. And bore the shit out of me.

So instead I spent 6 hours learning how the IBM Mainframe scripting language (REXX) works and making it do it for me. Much more fun, I learned a lot, and in the end I discovered that the task will probably need to be done weekly. So I've saved myself 2 boring hours a week. Yay! And learned something. Yay!

If only all days were this good.

Comments

[allorin.livejournal.com]

Well yeah - 'cept, in a couple of weeks, they would probably have become MY boring hours. So you've saved me. THanks, bud.

[tisme.livejournal.com]

You rock. Tis true.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

It was the only thing to do. A big part of being a programmer (for me) is that I can automate boring tasks. You want to see the monster system of 3 apps that wrote to automate the mindnumbingly repetitive, yet very very long compile/build/release process at my last [and I remind you, both anally-retentive about file names, locations etc. and prone to changing these 'to be rigidly adhered to or boss will have foaming shouting fit' rules on a whim, sometimes even actually telling us beforehand] job.