> You don't have to be stupid to avoid work. I'm no dope, but I avoid any > > work I can avoid. If your co-worker sees the change a fully-automated > > build as extra work, and he doesn't want to do extra work, then you > > could try showing him why the fully-automated build will make for less > > work. If he can't see it, he can't see it. Don't smack your head against > > the wall; it just hurts.
It could be a "cultural" thing. The Unix philosophy was that if you were going to do something more than a couple of times, you should write a script to automate it. For PCs, it was that if you were going to do something a bunch of times, you should get some fancy GUI with a ton of buttons and then memorize all of the icon functions and key sequences. Pressing 5 or 10 buttons in a row is not seen as being too onerous.
Having been on both sides, automating it is always more consistent, faster in the long run, and helps to document the steps. Long sequences of button pressing are prone to human-memory glitches, making it a source of frequently errors. GUIs are good for rarely used and exploratory tasks, but not for frequently used or critical work. Unfortunately the PC development culture leans heavily on button bashing, IDEs and pretty GUIs (even for things like diff). It is something that I’ve always seen as a de-evolution in software development, but I realize with many developers it is a religious argument.
Paul.
