Gradual automation in Ruby | Arkency Blog

It’s the simplest piece of Ruby code you’ll read today. I originally stumbled upon it here, where it’s referred as do-nothing scripting. I have yet another name for it, though: Puts-First Automation or Puts-Driven Automation.ProblemYou want to codify a manual process like setting up another instance of your e-commerce app. It may involve several steps with varying potential for automation (like seed the db, set up a subdomain, set up admin account).Solution 1 📖: lay out all steps in a wiki page and teach people to conform.Solution 2 🧠: don’t even document the steps, keep it in your own head. Have people always come to you or discover it from scratch, develop tribal knowledge.Solution 3 🖲: make everything happen at the push of a button in your glossy dashboard app. Spend weeks implementing it and months maintaining it. Lie to yourself that this is good ROI.Solution 4 ⚙️: skip the UI part, write a script that automates it all. Wonder why people don’t use it.Solution 5 📝 ⚙️: make a do-nothing script that only tells you what to do next. Gradually automate it where it makes sense.