Scripting Repeatable Tasks
By Bob Plankers on Apr 19, 2007 in System Administration
My new rule: if you intend to do something the same way on more than three machines, ever, or if the time spent on doing this same thing exceeds ten minutes in your lifetime, or the lifetimes of the folks around you, then it needs to be scripted.
Why?
Humans cannot do the same thing the same way for very long. Period.
They forget things and get distracted.
They take bathroom breaks and forget where they were.
They can’t remember how they did the exact same thing last week, but they think they do.
They think they remember the written directions by heart. They don’t.
There are lots of things humans are good at. Doing the same thing the same way twice is not one of them. Just admit it, get over it, and require that everything be scripted. Then your written directions can be one line: run the script.
Plus it gives all the admins some scripting practice, which is good.
