🤔 What’s Your Biggest Barrier to Scripting?
Scripting is essential in geological workflows… from resource modelling to data cleaning and simulation. But I also know that for many geologists, scripting can feel intimidating, unfamiliar, or just not part of their training.
We want to make scripting feel more intuitive… more like geology.
🤔 What’s Your Biggest Barrier to Scripting? 5 votes
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I think the biggest barrier is a combination of all of the above. From my experience in the civil/construction industry, the real problem is that most people don't understand the value of scripting - Therefore, they never bother learning it or utilising it. To get people to utilise scripting, the most important thing would be to identify problems (specific scenarios) where scripting is faster, easier and better than the 'manual' methodology. Until specific scenarios are shown off, I can't see many geologists who have the time or the care to learn how to do it, as a lot of companies (from my experience) don't give employees much time for training on non-essential parts of the job.
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Speaking as a non-geologist, and non-dev, I can confirm that to be expected to pick up the concepts of scripting 'late' into an established career/work environment is intimidating.
(I can also confirm that all of the above radio items are applicable, and all are a part of the hesitation to uptake)Outside of technology engineering departments, there's a common glazed-over look that people get when you start talking about scripting/coding. Outside of our bubble, I think it is important to acknowledge that for many people, the learning curb is large and the value proposition to an individual to undertake it, is just not there.
There needs to be some kind of 'Dummy scripting 101' courses, examples, or guided workshops for people to really understand that it is not as scary as it looks. And that there are real world workflows where it can save them hours of manual work grind. When people are intimidated by something new, the majority tend to stay quiet and hope that the work is outsourced to actual devs/ technical people who have a real passion for it.Often, I have found myself feeling dumb and underqualified for my role being surrounded by highly intelligent people who have spent years in the coding world. Though nobody would ever dare articulate that out loud- it's a fear a lot of non-technical people have (of being judged/ seen as not 'smart enough'). The reality is, we are expecting highly competent people who haven't dedicated their career focusing on developer scripting skills, to suddenly be passionate and interested in developing themselves, with a whole new skill set- and for what gain? Imo that is the hard question and sorry, but I don't have a clear answer for that one, yet.
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The tools are too technical or developer-focused
Geologists don't want to script. They want the ore on the ROM and the waste on the dump. They want to find additional resource faster than it's being depleted. They want the GC models ready to go before engineering start whining for them. They want their quarterly production bonus. They want to go home at the end of their swing in one piece. Everything else is a means to that end.
Software is just a tool, to be used until a better tool comes along. Action recorders and scripting tools have been in common use since the days of the IPod - before you even get a touch screen smartphone. They've never been fun. So now it's more of the same but somehow better because it's in the cloud (ie, someone else's computer)? Yeah, nah.1