---
title: tiniest of tips
teaser:
tags: unix
author: Jason Morrison
published_on: 2009-09-16
---

Every time you find yourself typing something long and repetitive, automate it.
Every time.

I often hop into `script/console`, so aliasing that is a no-brainer.  That is
not the point of this post, though; I also often look up my current user when
I'm in `script/console`, and I get tired of typing my email address every time.
Add a method into your ~/.irbrc to make that painless, too.

```sh
[~/dev/railsapp] alias sc
sc=script/console

[~/dev/railsapp] tail -n 3 ~/.irbrc
def me
  User.find_by_email 'jmorrison@thoughtbot.com'
end

[~/dev/railsapp] sc
Loading development environment (Rails 2.3.3)

>> me
  SQL (0.2ms)   SET NAMES 'utf8'
  SQL (0.1ms)   SET SQL_AUTO_IS_NULL=0
  User Columns (2.7ms)   SHOW FIELDS FROM `users`
  User Load (60.1ms)   SELECT * FROM `users` WHERE (`users`.`email` =
    'jmorrison@thoughtbot.com') LIMIT 1
=> #<User id: 1, name: "Jason Morrison", email: "jmorrison@thoughtbot.com">
```