A conversation I had last friday:
Alex: “Okay, so I have to separate table creation statements and alter table statements. But It’ll be a tedious copy-and-paste code work!”
Me: “Why don't you script that? At least use Excel to generate your queries from a list of table…” (can’t believe I said that)
Alex: “It'll make the job even harder!”
I sighed.
I’m shocked by the amount of my fellow programmer not taking time to learn a scripting language. I don’t care what you want to use, Python, Ruby, Perl, Bash or PowerShell… but learn (at least) one. Automate all repetitive tasks if feasible: you are paid to bring value by being creative, not to do machine job. And guess what, the machine is infinitely more reliable and faster at this than you are.
I write lots of scripts, and it saved my butt lots of times. I script app deployment, I script KPI gathering, I script commercial proposal generation, I script service reference modification when WCF makes shit. I get furious when a piece of software I have to use doesn’t provide an API nor a CLI.
Please learn a scripting language and stop wasting your time, wasting my time and screw up the whole project with your hazardous copy and past scenario.
