Yaaaay story time!
Computers are supposed to work for us. As a software engineer working on IoT on a daily basis, one of my major goals is to make computers do the work i don't want to do. I would preffer expending my day designing something that require creative effort, and not repetitive effort.
That's why for me, automation is a must. From the most trivial things, passing from devops magic and even reaching the kingdom of hardware, automation is present on my life.
I was first introduced to automation some years back when i found out about something exquisite called php unit. In that time i used to develop low quality php code, zip it manually, upload the zip file to a ftp server and then unzip this file. Ergh.
That's when I realized that i didn't need to test every single piece of code I have made on the browser. The code could test itself, and i was amazed by it. From this point, I started reading a lot about automated tests and testing methodology. Test-Driven Development by Example, by Kent Beck, was one of my first reads on the subject.
After that, I got to a point where i wanted to automate everything. That's when i started developing https://devmind.io as an effort to make my dev life easier. I started developing features that could automate boring work that i didn't want to do. I made a complete ftp/ftps client that had a nice organization system so i wouldn't lose precious minutes looking for passwords at my work email. Then I wrote a code beautifier that would work for php, html and javascript (it was my tech stack at that time.) because i just hated writing allman indentation all the time.
Then I found myself in a pickle. I could no longer use shared hosting services. I had to become a man and manage a linux server myself. No need to mention that i have become addicted on server automation. I started using digital ocean, then went to amazon and now i'm using Google cloud. It is by far, the better infrastructure provider i have ever found so far. The fact that they generate ssh keys on the fly and let me log into my machine on the web with a complete terminal using my google account gives me chills. Good chills.
Some time after that, while being a researcher at University of Brasilia, I found out that there are a lot of better alternatives to ftp on software development. It didn't take much until Devmind had Github and GitLab integrations. It got to a point where i could run my deploy commands just by saving my code on Devmind. Gosh, i really love webhooks.
Now i'm venturing into the obscure realm of hardware and I'm having a lot of fun with it! I can already control a lot of my home devices thanks to a RFID on my wallet and a home made linux server. I almost feel like a mad scientist from some cartoon.
I really became addicted in automation. What about you guys? Do you automate anything on your life? What do you automate? I would love to hear suggestions!
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