When I’m working on an application I periodically save the entire directory structure the project resides in, usually upon the completion of any major milestones or prior to any dirty work. The number of archive files can add up over time so to keep track of them I use a handy little naming convention -> Project_yyyyMMddhhmm. The reason for this, other than consistency is pretty simple… By using the current date/time in this format, all the archive files are automatically sorted alphabetically by the exact year, month, day and time they were created and well, it makes more sense than say “Project1, Project2″ etc…If I’m working in Windows I usually go about the process of archiving a project by selecting all the files/folder in the working directory, adding them to a zip file then naming the zip file according to the naming convention. In the process I have to look at the current date/time and populate the information accordingly. This takes less than a minute…but when under tight deadlines, every minute counts!
In Linux/Unix, I can archive a project in less than a second…through the use of a few aliases and a single variable. For example, I have the following in my .bashrc file:
alias appname=’echo $appname’
alias archtime=’date +%Y%m%d%M’
alias archapp=’tar -cf `appname`_`archtime`.tar *’
So, I have a shell variable called appname which, in BASH I can change by typing appname=’currentapp’. Then I have a command called appname which simply returns the value of that variable. Finally, I have two commands: archtime and archapp which retreive the date and archive the entire directory respectively. The archtime command simply returns the formatted results of a date command and the archapp command uses the tar application to archive the directory using the results of the appname and archtime commands.
Now I can run archapp from the command line and it will automatically create a new archive file using my naming convention 
Simple but sweet!
There are several areas of Information Technology that I am interested in. Specifically, I have always been fascinated with the area of process automation through the use of scripting. Some of the more popular scripting languages available are: Perl, JavaScript, and VBScript (Cashman, Shelly, & Vermaat, 2004, p. 412).
In the corporate world, it seems job functions often times revolve around processes. As a result, it can be difficult sometimes to conjure up creative solutions and provide innovative input. I find that that I spend more of my time at work focusing on following procedures than I do brainstorming ideas or implementing formative problem solving techniques. With that in mind, if my process oriented job functions could be automated somehow, this would free up more of my time and energy so that I could focus on other things, such as growth and development within the organization. Many of the tasks I perform as part of procedure could be easily automated if I were able to write a script program that performs the tasks for me (Wikipedia, 2005). The tasks I would like automate include running commands and obtaining output from those commands. The only thing left for me to do at that point would be to analyze the output. In other words, most of the work involved, would be done by the computer instead of by me and therefore, the time it would have taken me to perform those tasks, could be spent working on other things.
I would like to focus my career on obtaining the programming skills necessary to be able to develop scripting utilities for the purpose of automating tasks. There are many jobs available on the market today that require these skills. A job that I might be interested in would be that of a Perl Developer (The Perl Job Site, 2005). Some of the questions I might have regarding this type of job would be: How many years of experience are required? What is the level of education required? What are some of the other non-technical skills that might be needed? What are the salary ranges?
References:
Cashman, T.J., Shelly, G.B, & Vermaat, M. E. (2004). Discovering Computers: Fundamentals editions. Boston: Course Technology
Wikipedia. (2005). Scripting Language. Retrieved November 19, 2005 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scripting_programming_language
The Perl Job Site. (2005). Perl Developer. Retrieved November 19, 2005 from http://jobs.perl.org/job/3304
