A good client understands why you shouldn't optimize for doing "one narrowly defined task very efficiently"; for the rest, I've tried to resolve matters diplomatically.
Yet — for my own work, I will barely hesitate to build a tool for one narrowly defined task that I know I'm going to have to do repeatedly.
The irony is that, in the latter case, I'm facing an ROI that is capped at 1:1 (see xkcd [1]); whereas in the former case, you're leveraged at 1:N, where N is the number of users (who are doing the narrowly-defined task).
One of the perks of "learning to code" is that you have a programmer on payroll who gives you preferential treatment.
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A good client understands why you shouldn't optimize for doing "one narrowly defined task very efficiently"; for the rest, I've tried to resolve matters diplomatically.
Yet — for my own work, I will barely hesitate to build a tool for one narrowly defined task that I know I'm going to have to do repeatedly.
The irony is that, in the latter case, I'm facing an ROI that is capped at 1:1 (see xkcd [1]); whereas in the former case, you're leveraged at 1:N, where N is the number of users (who are doing the narrowly-defined task).
One of the perks of "learning to code" is that you have a programmer on payroll who gives you preferential treatment.
[1] http://xkcd.com/1205/