4 ms·

This won't be much value for graphic designers, but I'm most often asked for help with manipulation of text files. If you don't know about regular expressions,

This won't be much value for graphic designers, but I'm most often asked for help with manipulation of text files. If you don't know about regular expressions, there are all sorts of problems that are only solvable with great amounts of tedium. There have been a few occasions where sed s/something/or other/g has saved friends of mine hours of avoidable typing, at a cost of a few minutes for me. Also, I tend to have access to servers with more bandwidth than the average person needs, which has proved useful in the past for short-lived hosting of large files, web demos, and the like.

amalcon 17y ago
Don't I know it. I've saved people many hours of copy/pasting and manual indexing in several different Excel spreadsheets by having them export to CSVs, running them through a quick Perl script, and having them import again. To a non-programmer, a computer is a tool for processing data. To a programmer, a computer is a tool for making tools. Most skilled programmers don't even realize how often they make tools for seemingly minor tasks. These tools are what we have to trade.
- btwelch 17y ago
  Agreed. Your major competitive advantage as a programmer is probably the ability to build tools. If the problem calls for a particularly complex algorithm, or begins taking up too much time, that's when I make the tool as simple as possible and then leverage Mechanical Turk to get past the sticky bits.
dan_the_welder 17y ago
My core skills are in fabrication and I spent many years doing custom work. Each job was different but the more I was able to "automate" for the customer the easier their jobs became. A well designed storage system, work station or tool could turn a tedious or awkward task into a money maker. Regular computer users, especially in small businesses need the same non glamorous repetitive stuff you mention automated for the same reasons. The software components are out there already, all that's needed is some "custom fabrication" to glue it all together. I think there is a huge invisible niche between shrink wrap and enterprise. Not necessarily big money, but steady and satisfying work.

amalcon 17y ago

Don't I know it. I've saved people many hours of copy/pasting and manual indexing in several different Excel spreadsheets by having them export to CSVs, running them through a quick Perl script, and having them import again. To a non-programmer, a computer is a tool for processing data. To a programmer, a computer is a tool for making tools. Most skilled programmers don't even realize how often they make tools for seemingly minor tasks. These tools are what we have to trade.

btwelch 17y ago
Agreed. Your major competitive advantage as a programmer is probably the ability to build tools. If the problem calls for a particularly complex algorithm, or begins taking up too much time, that's when I make the tool as simple as possible and then leverage Mechanical Turk to get past the sticky bits.

dan_the_welder 17y ago

My core skills are in fabrication and I spent many years doing custom work. Each job was different but the more I was able to "automate" for the customer the easier their jobs became. A well designed storage system, work station or tool could turn a tedious or awkward task into a money maker. Regular computer users, especially in small businesses need the same non glamorous repetitive stuff you mention automated for the same reasons. The software components are out there already, all that's needed is some "custom fabrication" to glue it all together. I think there is a huge invisible niche between shrink wrap and enterprise. Not necessarily big money, but steady and satisfying work.