[beat]

In a truly minimal system, there isn't even a prompt. A code comment is about as minimal as I know how to get. That's just a placeholder to remember to automate a step.

When automating a complex manual process, the first thing I do is write comments describing the sequence, and any parameters needed. Parameters in particular can be enlightening, because when manual processes grow organically, naming consistency becomes a source of suffering - humans can just sort of figure out the right thing to type, computers can't intuit these things and they must be made explicit. It's worse when it can't be explicit without updating the process or creating some sort of data store for mapping.

This is why naming things is one of the two hard problems in computer science.

[cyphar]

Printing means you can run the script as-is, and any bits which aren't done automatically are prompted for. Just putting comments describing the steps would be like writing a README except in a more esoteric format and would defeat the primary benefit of the approach outlined in TFA.

[beat]

It kind of boggles me that a real analysis of the problems with naming conventions in manual process got massively downvoted. But no one ever got rich counting on the analytical sophistication of HN.

I'm not saying the original approach is bad. I'm saying it's not the simplest thing that can possibly work. I'm talking about how to move to automation, not how to reduce errors on the manual process. Both are needed.