I think that once you’ve been in this industry for a few years, you need to reach out to others to share some of the wisdom you’ve learned. Most of the knowledge we carry around can do other people a lot more good than it will do us again in the future, so sharing needs to be a cultural norm. With that thought in mind, here are some quick automation-related thoughts I’d like to share:
- Inexperienced engineers appear to work faster, but their solutions are less maintainable. [tweet this]
- Choose open systems over proprietary, when possible [tweet this]
- Automate your own job ruthlessly before to automate anything else. It pays back. [tweet this]
- Beware of employers who spend 30 minutes reprimanding you about a 15 minute line on your timesheet. [tweet this]
- If you can’t find a more powerful tool, make your own. [tweet this]
- When estimating a project, if you’re counting in hours, you’re not being realistic. Use half-days. [tweet this]
- Don’t take shortcuts writing a program if it’s at the expense of readability. It doesn’t pay off. [tweet this]
- Automation doesn’t help if you don’t understand the process you’re automating. [tweet this]
- Blame is reactive. “What can we do differently next time?” is proactive. [tweet this]
- Innovate is a verb. This is not a coincidence – it requires constant action. [tweet this]
- Make things of value, not emails. [tweet this]
Feel free to share your own nuggets of wisdom below.