Archive What If? Blag Store About A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language. Automation |< < Prev Random Next > >| |< < Prev Random Next > >| Permanent link to this comic: http://xkcd.com/1319/ Image URL (for hotlinking/embedding): http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/automation.png "I spend a lot of time on this task. I should write a program automating it!" [[Panel titled "Theory:" at the top contains a line plot, with "work" on the y-axis and "time" on the x-axis. Two curves indicate "work on the original task" eventually being permanently reduced by temporarily spending more work on coding, and then having the produced automation take over.]] [[Panel titled "Reality:" at the top contains a similar line plot, but the line for "work on the original task" does not decrease. The second curve, which starts out as "writing code", becomes "debugging", "rethinkin...