June 29, 2016
Original: Automation (1319)
Caption: "I spend a lot of time on this task. I should write a program automating it!"
A graph labelled "Theory", with work on the y axis and time on the x axis. The graph shows work on the original task remaining constant, with the line eventually turning into a dashed line labelled "No time for original task anymore", while writing code, debugging, rethinking, and ongoing development take more time than the original task. [This is the graph from panel two in the original comic.]
A graph labelled "Reality", with the same axes. This shows writing code taking more work for a short period of time, and then automation takes over and work on both code and the original task goes to zero. [This is so far the graph from panel one in the original comic.] However, another line appears, around the same level as the "writing code" line at its peak, labelled "working around the bugs and limitations in the program I just wrote."
Title text: An advantage to writing my own software is that if there are things I don't like, I can actually fix them... but not today. Maybe later.