My most niche hobby is writing ungodly bash scripts, and sourcing them to one of my bash profiles -- mingw64 (windows), zshell (OSx), or normal (debian based).

I write in such a way that scripts are separated by concepts which overwhelmingly align with a certain technology or tool (e.g. git) and source whichever functionality I want into the proper profile.

The pain is separating corporate vs personal scripts, which I don't have a great solution for outside of actually separating the scripts and sourcing in the proper order so that corporate functionality can override personal functionality (i.e. my git commands in corporate environment are still the same but with properly overridden config, etc)

For example, I bought a steam deck and mainly use it as a laptop instead of a gaming device. I created a new bash script steamos and source to my (new) steamos profile. All my setup is repeatable through scripts to the point I could factory reset, clone my profile repo, run a couple commands, and everything is back where it should be. I am not quite to that state with other environments, but that is my goal.

Imagine starting a new job, being handed a laptop you don't get to choose (probably a Crapbook), and then simply clone and run config command to setup the OS for your personal prefs so you can hit the ground running on week one. This doesn't mean you clue people in on the fact you are running not walking, however, ESPECIALLY at a new job.

inb4 have you heard of Ansible

[–] bluueberry 3 points 1 year ago

Haha, I love that kind of thing too - even if there's a "better" off the shelf alternative, it's fun to figure it all out and design it exactly the way you want. it feels like doing a sudoku or writing a story or something to me. I feel like I wouldn't be working in tech if I hadn't initially gotten into making my setup just right with scripts - before that point I just didn't have a lot of programming tasks that caught my interest, but I learned a lot that way and eventually branched into other stuff too.

[–] Kuma@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

I am a looooot more basic. But I see the fun in scripting. I make scripts when I need to do boring/monoton/repeating tasks like setting up a new win env after a new install, Set up test environments or getting info that my customers ask for that is something they will most likely not ask for again or if I need test data (especially files). I am a fullstack developer so that is why I am not doing anything fancy like the sys admins and I am too practical to create something for the sake of creating. But I do love creating things that is being used!