> I can't help but feel that a lot of programmers just decide to stop learning at some arbitrary point in their career (my observations suggest that point is ar

> I can't help but feel that a lot of programmers just decide to stop learning at some arbitrary point in their career (my observations suggest that point is around the end of their university term or their first job). Indeed. I had the frustrating, but ultimately fortuitous, situation of having my first job be one where I was asked to build a solution with woefully under-powered tools. I'm not even talking about the difference between hand tools and power tools - I was essentially asked to use kid toys. That situation made me very angry, and I was constantly working overtime to make up for the lack of productivity of my tools - even then we were going to miss our deadline. Finally, I managed to convince management to let me and my team use real tools - nothing super advanced, but well suited for the job. Very quickly we turned around the release, I started working normal hours, and when I left that job shortly after the release my employer found that they didn't need to hire a replacement because the workload was so much less. This experience taught me that the power of your tools does matter, and that the initial pain of technology transition can easily be outweighed by the benefits of using something better. For me, the quality I look for in my tools is: does it reward mastery? I'm not (primarily) looking the initial growth curve and how long it takes before I get to my current productivity. Rather, I'm looking at where the ceiling is.