jobrog
A rewrite of JobLog in Rust.
JobLog, referred to herein variously as "JobLog", "Job Log", "jobrog", "job log", and "job", is a command line utility that helps one keep track of what one does in a day. With a little anonymization, here is an example of an actual report of use in the wild:
> job summary last friday
Friday, 10 January
8:55 am - 9:35 0.75 e, o email
9:35 - 9:41 0.00 f, o filing time
9:41 - 10:50 1.25 30, mr, fo Create booster view which lets you add people to booster
10:50 - 12:15 1.50 10, mr, fo get multi-tenant S3 attachments to work
12:15 - 12:16 0.00 c, o feeding the cat
12:16 - 3:46 pm 3.50 10, mr, fo get multi-tenant S3 attachments to work
3:46 - 3:50 0.00 29, mr, fo Make it so the Plugh API is only called for gargamel stuff
3:50 - 3:50 0.00 mtg, fo FO/UPI Monthly Check-In
3:50 - 4:01 0.25 29, mr, fo Make it so the Plugh API is only called for gargamel stuff
4:01 - 4:30 0.50 mtg, fo FO/UPI Monthly Check-In
4:30 - 5:01 0.50 29, mr, fo Make it so the Plugh API is only called for gargamel stuff
TOTAL HOURS 8.00
10 5.00
29 0.75
30 1.25
c 0.00
e 0.75
f 0.00
mr 6.75
mtg 0.50
o 0.75
fo 7.25
In this case the user (me) has typed something like
job add --tag email --tag o email
or, more likely,
job a -t e -t o email
or still more likely,
job r -t e
and added a line to ~/.joblog/log which looks like
2020 1 10 8 55 27:e o:email
Job log lets one manage a log of one's activities as a log file. A log line consists of a timestamp, some metadata, and a description of the current event.
Screencast
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Why
There are many alternatives to JobLog. One can use Harvest, for instance. The advantages of JobLog over these alternatives are
- your data is on your own machine; it is your own file; you can keep it across changes of employer
- if live on the command line, or typically have one handy, the mental context switch, and manual dexterity, is less when one changes tasks; one simply tabs to the command line and types
job a new thing I'm doing - it doesn't need and internet connection
- job log is blazingly fast
- job log keeps random notes for you as well as events; this sometimes is helpful
How
The typical things one does with job log are
- register a change of task
- take a note
- register going off the clock
- summarize a period to enter it into some other time tracking system
Here is the complete list (job help):
testing 0.1.3
dfhoughton <dfhoughton@gmail.com>
command line job clock
USAGE:
job [OPTIONS] [SUBCOMMAND]
FLAGS:
-h, --help Prints help information
-V, --version Prints version information
OPTIONS:
-d, --directory <dir> Looks in this directory for the log rather than ~/.joblog
SUBCOMMANDS:
add Adds a new task
summary Says when you will have worked all the hours expected within the given period
done Ends a currently open task
resume Resumes a stopped task
last Shows the last task recorded
first Shows the first task recorded
note Adds a new note
when Says when you will have worked all the hours expected within the given period
edit Opens the job log in a text editor
configure Sets or displays configuration parameters
vacation Records vacation time
parse-time Shows the start and end timestamps you get from a particular time expression
truncate Truncates the log so it only contains recent events
statistics Shows overall statistics of the log
help Prints this message or the help of the given subcommand(s)
The 'job' executable allows one to maintain and view a log of daily activity.
> job add creating demonstration events in the log
starting creating demonstration events in the log (no tags)
> job add events have a duration
starting events have a duration (no tags)
> sleep 60
> job add --tag foo tags facilitate searching and aggregation
starting tags facilitate searching and aggregation (tags: foo)
> job note you can take notes as well
noted you can take notes as well (no tags)
> job note notes are events without a duration
noted notes are events without a duration (no tags)
> job add you can go off the clock
starting you can go off the clock (no tags)
> job done
ending you can go off the clock at 11:13 am
> job resume --tag foo
starting tags facilitate searching and aggregation (tags: foo)
> job note you can resume an earlier event
noted you can resume an earlier event (no tags)
> job note you can summarize the log
noted you can summarize the log (no tags)
> job summary today
Sunday, 19 January
11:11 am - 11:12 0.021 creating demonstration events in the log; events have a duration
11:12 - 11:13 0.006 foo tags facilitate searching and aggregation
11:13 - 11:13 0.001 you can go off the clock
11:13 - ongoing 0.007 foo tags facilitate searching and aggregation
TOTAL HOURS 0.036
UNTAGGED 0.022
foo 0.013
> job summary --notes today
Sunday, 19 January
11:12 am you can take notes as well
11:12 notes are events without a duration
11:13 you can resume an earlier event
11:13 you can summarize the log
> job note you can configure job
noted you can configure job (no tags)
> job configure --precision quarter
setting precision to quarter!
> job summary today
Sunday, 19 January
11:11 am - 11:12 0.00 creating demonstration events in the log; events have a duration
11:12 - 11:13 0.00 foo tags facilitate searching and aggregation
11:13 - 11:13 0.00 you can go off the clock
11:13 - ongoing 0.00 foo tags facilitate searching and aggregation
TOTAL HOURS 0.00
UNTAGGED 0.00
foo 0.00
This version of job is a Rust implementation: https://github.com/dfhoughton/jobrog. The original implementation was in
Perl: https://metacpan.org/pod/App::JobLog.
NOTE
The examples shown here and throughout the job log documentation are generally the most verbose possible for the sake of clarity. They all have short forms, however, to save keystrokes. Instead of
job add --tag overhead --tag email Reading the morning email.
you can type
job a -t overhead -t email Reading the morning email.
You will probably find that long tags like this are irksome and reduce them as well:
job a -t o -t e Reading the morning email.
But if there is something you do frequently, the easiest thing to do is to give it a distinctive tag and just resume it:
job resume -t e
or
job r -t e
Installation
To be ensured the latest version, one needs to use cargo:
cargo install jobrog
There is also a homebrew tap:
brew install dfhoughton/tap/jobrog
Changes from App::JobLog
For the most part the features of jobrog are a superset of those of App::JobLog. There are some differences, though:
- You can mark when repeating vacation intervals go into effect or become inactive. If you use this feature however, or if you add a new repeating vacation interval, your vacation file will no longer be readable by App::JobLog. This feature adds two colon-delimited timestamps to the end of the relevant line. This is the only breaking change I know of.
- There is optional color!
- There is a
firstsubcommand parallel tolast. - The
todaysubcommand has been subsumed intosummary, which now has "today" as its default period. - There are fewer compression options for the
truncatesubcommand in the interest of simplicity. - The filtering options for summaries behave somewhat differently and are, for me, more useful.
- You can round up, round down, or "round center" the durations for lawyer-billing, saint-billing, and ordinary-shmoe-billing modes.
- You can configure jobrog to use fractional hour precision, like quarter and half.
- You can obtain summaries as line-delimited JSON as well as tabulated text.
- The merging and display of summary information is considerably less configurable.
Why Rewrite App::JobLog?
- Everyone's doing it!
- Rust is fun!
- The rust version is perceptibly faster and in some cases usefully faster.
- My Perl skills were in little demand and thus becoming rusty.