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Author cites the all too relevant XKCD with regards to "automating things". Curious to hear if anyone else is making IFTTT work for them on a daily basis. My i
by Tehchops 9y ago
Author cites the all too relevant XKCD with regards to "automating things".
Curious to hear if anyone else is making IFTTT work for them on a daily basis. My initial experience with IFTTT was buggy, tasks would fire inconsistently, with no clear way to debug.
- newfoundglory 9y agoI use it for a bunch of stuff, like turning off lights when I leave the house, saving internet activity to my calendar for a personal history, etc.
- herbst 9y agoI don't see why I would even use a middle man service honestly.
- eastendguy 9y agoNot me (but also curious to hear!). I tried it but never understood the value they provide for users with basic programming and scripting knowledge. I either use the API directly, or, if not available or I only need some quick and dirty solution, resort to web browser automation tools like Kantu.
- newfoundglory 9y agoWhy would I bother doing that instead of just using an existing recipe? The benefit is laziness.
- mathgeek 9y agoBecause the existing recipes are one-size-fits-all. If you need an sort of customization, you end up rolling your own anyway. Many of us started coding for that kind.of reason to begin with.
- newfoundglory 9y agoWell, yea. But ignoring the existence of the recipes that you do need just because you want a custom one for something else is silly.
- paultopia 9y agoI had the same experience. I gave up on it after a couple days.
- lj3 9y agoThis was my understanding of the service, but I haven't tried using it in 3+ years. Things may have changed. It depends on what you're doing. Most users use it as a simple, time independent trigger mechanism. IE: when they post to twitter, IFTTT picks that up and reposts to tumblr. Most popular use cases are not time sensitive or high throughput. I once heard a fellow programmer say IFTTT was not designed for people like us. Those two caveats are why. Time sensitive use cases, like getting text messages when it's going to rain, don't work well. Neither do high throughput tasks like filtering the HN firehose.
- sampl 9y agoI’ve had IFTTT applets running consistently for years for really only one use case: getting texts/emails when people post specific things I want on my local craigslist.
- creeble 9y agoI'd be curious to know the benefit of IFTTT over the registered search/notify built in to CL. Different options or...?
- charlieegan3 9y agoI use IFTTT to save all my Instagram posts to Dropbox