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The worst tool for the job

• gk1 6y ago
  What a great principle. One of those things I've felt for a long time but never express so well as John did. This idea extends to many other things, like... sports equipment. Beginner runners/bikers/skateboarders/whatever will not really feel the difference between equipment that cost $100 and $1,000, so get the cheap one and use it to (its) death. If you're still into the sport by then, go ahead and get the nicer one. You'll actually appreciate the difference then and be happier, and also know that you'll actually make good use of it. Another interesting way to put it: Minimum Viable Tool.
  • PaulHoule 6y ago
    I found a pretty big difference between a $20 tennis racket and a $60 racket. For one thing, any tennis racket is going to get loose if you play with it long enough. It cost more than $20 to redo the strings on a $20 tennis racket and $20 racket is going to send balls in totally the wrong direction in the next season.
    • diarmuidc 6y ago
      Sure but you have to use it long enough for the stings to get loose. What percentage of tennis racket purchases are used more than once?
      • franciscop 6y ago
        A high one? All of the tennis rackets I've seen are used until they are torn, broken, and been repaired multiple times (at least the cords). True I'm from Spain, but it's rare that rackets are used only once.
        • nicoburns 6y ago
          You probably don't see the ones that aren't used. They're stuck in storage in people's houses.
    • the_af 6y ago
      I guess the point is that if you find redoing the strings of your $20 racket more than once or twice, it means you're really using it and that warrants buying the expensive one. The idea is to avoid buying the expensive racket before you even know if you'll like playing tennis at all.
      • ajmurmann 6y ago
        Also the other half of the article's premise: you've return out the cheap racket. This means you are really using the thing, do don't just buy a better one but but a great one. Don't waste money working your way through mid-tier equipment first
    • wink 6y ago
      But you already know this, so you've probably played for a while. I think the meaning is if you start playing tennis, use the 20$ one. Then if you manage to wear it out, buy a good one. You shouldn't buy a 2nd 20$ one, ever.
  • cainxinth 6y ago
    I use a similar heuristic that I’ve dubbed the 90% rule. In many cases, you can buy something that is 90% as good as the best product available for two thirds or even half the cost. If you want the very best, though, you have to pay through the nose. Ergo, you should always try the cheaper product first.
    • Infernal 6y ago
      You may have independently formulated the Pareto principle. The idea that you can get 80% of the theoretical max value for about 20% of the cost, but the next 20% of value requires 400% additional (the "missing 80%") cost. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle
  • ggambetta 6y ago
    Came here to say this. I've recently bought the cheapest bicycle and stand-up paddleboard I could find, precisely because of that reason. I don't know if the hobbies will "stick". Can always invest more later.
  • xorcist 6y ago
    If you have the money, why waste it on low quality goods that will break? Buy better stuff instead and sell it or give it away when you find you don't use it anymore! Quality, mid range equipment. Not luxury. (The examples are unfortunate. For a runner it might suffice with $100 worth of equipment but not for a cyclist.)
    • throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      >If you have the money, why waste it on low quality goods that will break? Because oftentimes (depending on the type of product) they don't actually break, they're just slightly less luxurious to use.
  • cmehdy 6y ago
    Sometimes you don't know what the minimum viable is because you are a beginner and don't know yourself well in that field. For example, I started running with shoes that were somewhat fine for beginners when I would double-check online, but happened to have limitations that affected people who practice a lot, or people who don't practice properly, or in my case undiagnosed issues (hypermobility of the knee). In my case getting those shoes with too much shock absorption was actually dangerous because it prevented the feedback loop of auto-correction from being built. This led to some habits that I didn't notice were bad and later on led to a pain in my knee that has, despite my best efforts and much rest over the last 8 years, entirely prevented me from the freedom of running. Another example I've encountered is with the guitar: the first one I picked up was this entry-entry-level thing that was viable for my budget but hindered my interest in practice because I didn't just encounter the physical pain you encounter when learning the guitar, but also the pain you get from badly adjusted guitars with high action and uneven frets and fairly crappy wood. I gave up on it a few times. But I eventually tried again and made the hypothesis that the hindrance was the guitar, and after testing that hypothesis I committed to buying a better one which enabled me to actually learn things that flat out seemed impossible on a crappy piece of wood. Years later, I'm far away from all my good guitars and I buy this entry-level thing because I miss playing.. and it's been hanging there mostly untouched because of how bad it just feels. I think it's much smarter to spend some time testing out things with other people's help and to borrow stuff for a while whenever possible, but on average to commit to something above entry-level if you're trying to be serious about anything. You'll save yourself a decent amount of time, you can give yourself a progress curve that looks much smoother, and when comes the time to truly upgrade you'll have something solid to use as a base to look at higher quality tools. edit: notwithstanding the fact that in many cases you have zero resell-value for physical tools that are entry-level, while something average will at least go for a reasonable percentage of the original price
    • itsoktocry 6y ago
      >In my case getting those shoes with too much shock absorption was actually dangerous because it prevented the feedback loop of auto-correction from being built. This led to some habits that I didn't notice were bad and later on led to a pain in my knee that has, despite my best efforts and much rest over the last 8 years, entirely prevented me from the freedom of running. It seems like you're drawing a direct causal relationship to what is a very complex chain of events over a long period of time. How can you be sure the problems would not have arisen regardless of what tool (shoe) you originally bought?
  • MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    It's also related to the 'rule of least power': Choose the least powerful computer language suitable for a given purpose. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_least_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_least_power
  • throwaway98797 6y ago
    Disagree. I gave up on so many sports cause of faulty uncomfortable equipment. As child we had such shitty swim goggles that they would leak badly. For 10 years I swam without them and kept my eyes hurting eventually couldn’t take it and quit cause of eye pain. As adult with money bought a nice pair for $20 and realized not all goggles leak.
    • gk1 6y ago
      I don't think anybody is advocating for using crappy tools for 10 years, especially when a better option is available for just $20.
      • throwaway98797 6y ago
        That’s the most extreme example. I also stopped roller blading because the mid tier blades hurt. Or 20 year old cross country sky’s are bad. I think you should buy the best equipment you can afford. Sell if at loss if you don’t stick to it.
    • keithnz 6y ago
      well, if you apply the principle in the article, if they leaked badly, they would be regarded as inadequate, so you'd swap them with the best you could afford.
    • glouwbug 6y ago
      Nothing wrong with goggles. A child's face is just too small
  • anthony_romeo 6y ago
    > You'll actually appreciate the difference then and be happier, and also know that you'll actually make good use of it. This also reflected my journey into watercolor painting. One day I bought a bunch of cheap watercolor paper and paints. I was able to just blow through those materials by lots of experimentation as I didn't have any fear of "wasting" the good paper and good paints. Only afterwards did I get a better understanding of why the more expensive paper and paints are worth the cost (e.g. better absorption of water by the paper, more vibrant pigments that mix together better). There's value in learning about the range of tool quality through the journey, as it will help create your own criterion for judging the quality of tools rather than assuming, say, that the cost of a tool is proportional to its quality.
  • darkerside 6y ago
    An example where this really doesn't apply is bicycles. When you're trying to get a child to learn to ride a bike, if you get a cheap steel bike from a big box store, it will be twice as heavy as it needs to be and can make the activity itself so difficult and unpleasant that the child decides they don't enjoy the activity.
    • bluedino 6y ago
      I'd question a kid who couldn't stand to learn to ride a department store bike.
      • throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        Thanks to value engineering (gotta reduce BOM cost) a modern department store bike is probably substantially lighter than an equivalent "nice" children's bike from 30yr ago.
    • javier10e6 6y ago
      I learned to ride on the crappiest banana seat schwimm with a dynamo powering a heavy head-light. I love it. I graduated to a Rampar BMX and then a Rebel top top components including KKT pedals and and Oakley 0.5 grips. Man years later I got a Fuji Aluminum Road entry level bike for my teenager son and he rode it for a few months and tossed it. Not interested. It was a great entry level bike. I believe on the evolution of the rider, from a Huffy Wal-Mart to a Bianchi or Giant.
    • mmsimanga 6y ago
      I have to disagree. I guess cheap is relative to your economic standing. We and I am purposely using we because there were about six of us learning to ride on two bicycles. All kids on the street. Both had no breaks, after too many punctures we used a thick hosepipe in place of a tube. Hosepipe made for very bumpy and rather heavy bike. As an adult I was in a better financial position and bought my daughter the cheapest bike to learn on. It's been six months now and she is riding just fine.
  • schwartzworld 6y ago
    The problem with this is that we live in a world where there are versions of things so cheap is to be unusable. you don't need a top-of-the-line skateboard to learn how to skate, but it's much harder to learn on a Walmart board, if not impossible. Bearings that don't roll, wheels that get flat spots, decks that are made of particle board and have no pop and l plastic bushings are all a huge impediment to doing the most basic parts of skating.
    • awakeasleep 6y ago
      You can extend this to guitars, too. On the cheapest models, the "action" (distance between strings and fretboard) is so long that only the most precise master of the craft can hope to play anything.
      • schwartzworld 6y ago
        True, although action is not a hard fix as it requires a file. It's a same more cheap guitars don't use zero frets, as they eliminate this problem.
  • mumblemumble 6y ago
    > Beginner runners/bikers/skateboarders/whatever will not really feel the difference between equipment that cost $100 and $1,000, so get the cheap one and use it to (its) death. Back when I used to go to mountain bike races, I noticed that you could roughly divide the people who rode $6000 bikes into two groups: Novices, who had no need for such a bike, and professionals, who get all their equipment from sponsors. The take away for me was that it never actually makes any practical sense to buy high-end equipment for myself. (Granted, I'm not self-employed.)
  • sireat 6y ago
    There is a problem with buying the most expensive tool. 2nd or 3rd most expensive can be just as good if not better than the most expensive. Quite a bit of research might be required. (Speakers, Laptops, Bikes, Watches it applies to most consumer goods) It is like that joke about two rich people comparing the same tie: How much was that tie? - $500 You fool, you should have gone to the store across the street it is $1000 there! src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_jokes#New_Russians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_jokes#New_Russians
  • baddox 6y ago
    This principle also doesn’t work well for things that have practically no ceiling to their cost, like clothing, cars, and furniture.
  • sharadov 6y ago
    Tried this with a bunch of sports, but the change was most obvious in skiing. Used to rent, when I bought my first pair of boots, I went from a literal "Beginner" to "Intermediate". Balance and coordination went up 5X.
  • Eric_WVGG 6y ago
    I used to have a friend who did a bit of contractor work, and he swore up and down by Sears “Craftsman” tools; not because they were the best (they were far from it), but because they had the best warranties. Every tool, he claimed, would wear out sooner or later, and Sears would always replace with a brand new one, no questions asked. I think there's some kind of point to be made here about broken economies and waste, but anyway it's a story that stuck with me.
    • labster 6y ago
      Sears eventually decided that not enough people returned the tools, and eventually started selling low-quality Craftsman products. I bought a water wand for spraying the yard and dog (mainly the dog, he really loved biting the spray), and had to return it 10 times for a replacement over the course of two years. Thing kept breaking in the metal rod. Then they had to give me a different design, got another 10 replacements that consistently broke below the handgrip. Eventually the store down the block from me closed, and Sears sold the Craftsman brand while it still had value.
  • GuB-42 6y ago
    > Beginner runners/bikers/skateboarders/whatever will not really feel the difference between equipment that cost $100 and $1,000 As a general rule I disagree. If beginners don't feel the difference, that's because they only used the $100 equipment, they would be better off with the $1000 one. I first noticed that with skis. I am not a great skier by any mean, but just for kicks I tried renting the best equipment I could find and wow, what a difference it made. Everything was so much more precise. Obviously, I made many mistakes, but the outcome became clearer and more repeatable. I knew how I was wrong and it helped me improve. Poor quality equipment muddy things up, so it might feel like it is more forgiving (more on that later) but in reality, its just blends its own shortcoming with yours so you never know what went wrong, especially if you are a beginner and can't trust your own skills. There are good reasons for not buying expensive equipment right away. The biggest one is simply that if you don't know if it is the right thing for you, you may spend a lot of money for nothing, that's why some people recommend renting first. The other is that high-end stuff tend to be less forgiving, because they are marketed to experts. It is not that beginners won't enjoy that level of quality, but for the previous reason, there isn't a market for it.
    • KineticLensman 6y ago
      > I first noticed that with skis. I am not a great skier by any mean, but just for kicks I tried renting the best equipment I could find and wow, what a difference it made I had the exact same comment. Luckily with skiing you can often try hire skis for a day rather than committing to purchasing expensive kit. You may also benefit from advances in ski tech rather than being locked in for years to an expensive early purchase. This happened to me when carving skis replaced the long straight and stiff skis that were prevalent when I started. Ski boots, however, are a different story, especially if you have non-standard feet (e.g. flat arches, wide toes, etc). After a couple of painful early holidays with ill-fitting boots, often selected quickly in a busy hire shop, I purchased a reasonably expensive pair with a customised fit and the difference in comfort was astounding. In practical terms I could ski 'til the end of the day without getting painful feet.
    • celrod 6y ago
      Ping pong is also interesting. Expensive paddles have sticky rubber that can help experienced players control the spin on a ball. Cheap paddles don't have much grip. Very cheap paddles, the hard ones with short pips and no sponge, have virtually no grip. Grip and imparting spin are important for letting you control the ball, but it's also a double edged sword. It's easy to get someone who doesn't know how to counteract spin to hit the ball into the net or miss the table entirely if their paddle has some grip. Inexperienced players are thus often better off with the cheap paddles -- they don't know how to use it to their advantage, so they're better off being immune to its effects. That reminds me of the "expert beginner" posted and discussed on HackerNews not too long ago: https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-the-expert-beginner/ https://daedtech.com/how-developers-stop-learning-rise-of-th... That is, cheap equipment can be a local optima that players can get stuck in. Disclaimer: I'm a novice.
  • nytf3 6y ago
    skateboarding is a very bad example here - there is a noticeable difference in the quality/bearings of a "beginner" equipment that comes from Walmart/Target that costs ~60, and a proper setup from a skateboard shop that costs ~120. The beginner equipment is more likely to get you hurt by breaking, and the bearings will be very very slow. For other sports, running/biking/skiing/etc I think this difference is not as pronounced.
    • Spivak 6y ago
      It’s odd that you would end by assuming that other sports don’t suffer from the same problem. If you buy crappy shoes and run in them for extended periods you will hurt your feet and knees. If you try to bike harder than commuting on a cheap bike you’ll hurt yourself when the brake pads come loose. No idea about skiing but someone in this thread said they felt a noticeable difference, I’m not sure if it translates into safety though.
  • tikhonj 6y ago
    This is harder than it sounds because the bottom of the market is often well below a minimum viable level, to the point that you're actively making learning harder for yourself if you go there. You might not feel the difference between $100 and $1000 shoes, but Walmart has $15 shoes which are probably bad enough they make it harder to start running and learn proper technique. I've experienced this pretty directly with skis. If you get the cheapest boots and skis you can, you'll find it harder to learn, to the point where your feet hurt at the end of the day. I pretty much associated skiing with pain until I got decent equipment. There is a level above which it isn't worth spending as a beginner, but it's a level that looks high to people on the outside. These days, I don't look for the cheapest tool I can find, I look for the cheapest tool people seriously use—which is often 5–10 times more expensive than the cheapest option. I've had enough experiences in the past sabotaging my own progression with awful tools that I know it's not worth it.
    • z3t4 6y ago
      You literally felt the pain though. And could appreciate the more expensive gear. But I agree with your point. In cross country skieing its much more fun if you have better gear. Some sports and professions is just gear dependent. You won't win a rally with a slow car.
      • ubercow13 6y ago
        It’s not just feeling the difference, it’s preventing injury and allowing yourself to progress at a speed which keeps you interested at all. I only finally started running regularly after years of trying and failing after buying proper shoes. The difference was immediate.
        • smoll 6y ago
          What made you keep trying running even though you failed multiple times at it? And had you failed even with excellent running shoes, would you have even kept trying? (Maybe you would have thought: "Well, I already have the best shoes. If I still can't get good, maybe I should give up forever.")
  • snvzz 6y ago
    I see this done a lot with headphones. Sennheiser HD600 cost around $280, are comfortable, do sound really accurate and pleasant, effectively last forever, are full modular with all pieces sold individually in the odd event the user drops them from a building or steps on them, and are effectively the market peak in value/price. But people keep buying uncomfortable foul-sounding sub-$100 headphones that last a few months at best.
    • vibrolax 6y ago
      Or they can buy Sony MDR 7506 for about $100, and they will sound ok and last 20+ years. At least mine have, and only the ear cushions have needed replacement. I get more joy finding and using durable, decently performing products that provide excellent value. The art is learning, for any category of equipment, how much you need to spend to obtain good long-term value.
      • kazinator 6y ago
        I'm still using the same pair of Sony headphones from circa 1997, that were just under $100. Nothing has needed any replacement. The ground connection on the 1/8" jack got finicky early on in the life of the cable (you have to bend it a little this way or that to get audio in both ears and with the channels separated), but in the 20 years after that problem appeared, it has not deteriorated one iota. You have to fiddle with it today with exactly the same pressure and nuance as in the year 2000. I used the 1/4" adapter from time to time, like going directly into a synthesizer keyboard. Given 30 minutes to search around the house, I can probably find that thing.
      • snvzz 6y ago
        >Or they can buy Sony MDR 7506 for about $100, and they will sound ok and last 20+ years. I happen to also own a pair of 7506. Do note these are a closed set, and they are, by far, not comparable with HD600. Basically like night and day. In the words of a coworker who also owns 7506, after trying my HD600: "Now the 7506 sound to me like an AM radio." Still, I don't disagree they're decent as closed headphones at <$100, particularly if you only care about the mid range. But they're relatively colored, despite their popularity as "monitors", and much worse than the Japan-only mdr-cd900st classic.
  • pryelluw 6y ago
    About two uears ago I got into mountain biking. Went into a bile shop with and spent $300 on a mountain-ish bike and a helmet. I thought about upgrading multiple times because "I had outgrown the bike". An upgrade was $1200. So, I decided to only upgrade if I could not beat my best time on a specific short trail. Well, I kept going faster and fastee. Untill the tires were the obvious thing holding me back. I upgraded the tires for $20 (clearance sale) and tested again. Still faster. Ended up not buying the new $1200 bike.
    • Apotheos 6y ago
      Buy used! You get the upgrade without having to spend as much money. I do think the upgrade from a new $300 bike to a used (originally) $1200 bike would be very worth it. I owned a pretty cheat big box bike, an $800 Kona Stuff (probably don't even make that anymore, and a $2700 Santa Cruz Bullet. Every time the upgrsde made a big difference and you could really feel the quality in what you were getting. I will say the upgrade from hardtail $800 bike to dual suspension $2,700 bike was a MASSIVE increase in performance.
• Swizec 6y ago
  This extends to software. Don’t start by building an app. Start with a spreadsheet. Figure out every step, get it real ironed out. Do manual work if you have to. Only when you’re certain tht your idea solves a real problem and your magic spreadsheet is killing your will to live, then write code and make a real thing. Too often people jump into building only to realize they have no idea what they need or that their idea isn’t needed.
  • PaulHoule 6y ago
    There are millions of magic spreadsheets that kill people's will to live, lead businesses to make billion dollar bad decisions, etc. (We need weapons of mass construction, but spreadsheets-as-we-know-them are weapons of mass destruction.)
    • Swizec 6y ago
      Billion dollar spreadsheet is a little late. Build real code around the 100k level
      • wruza 6y ago
        This is a great advice, but the human nature prevents two things. First, you never do it at the right time. Second, you cut corners which would heavily affect the ease or even a possibility of such transition. I spent half my work life unfucking spreadsheets into databases and usually it is nuances and misstructure all the way down. You have to be a genius software developer and a master of discipline to be able to turn your sheets to code in zero years. Add some collaborators and it's over. The ability to make a formula in a cell instead of a column is a formula for disaster. If I was looking for the worst tool for a poor man's ERP, I would consider phpMyAdmin or a similar "data studio" tool, but not a spreadsheet. There are plenty, all ready for a frontend to be written in place of them.
• klodolph 6y ago
  Eh, something to be said for mid-range too. I have a 12v cordless drill. Ended up saving me tons of work over the years but by no means either the best or the worst. Musical instruments. The low-end ones tend to be true disasters. Mid-range CPUs and GPUs are wonderful. Kitchen mixers, knives, screwdrivers, soldering irons, drill presses, etc. Plenty of times the worst tool is so obviously terrible that you probably shouldn’t consider it. Sometimes the worst tool is dangerous, damages what you’re working on, or has bad ergonomics. Bicycles. All those $100 bike-shaped objects out there. You don’t need to spend much more to get something comfortable that fits you and lasts a while.
  • kerkeslager 6y ago
    Well one caveat: at some point, you reach a level of expertise such that you can evaluate tools for yourself, and don't need rules of thumb like this. At that point a mid-grade tool might make sense. I do have some expertise in some of the areas you mentioned, and disagree with you: Musical instruments: if you're starting off on guitar, get a used Yamaha for $80 and spend as much money as you can on lessons. It's better to be a virtuoso with a Yamaha than to have a high-end Martin you can't play collecting dust in your attic. I have been given more than one expensive guitar because people heard me play and thought I'd get more out of the guitar than they were getting out of it. Bikes: I got a fixed-gear bike for $90 to use as a daily commuter. A month in, I was tired of getting flats, so I replaced the tires with Continental Gatorskins which cost more than the bike originally did. After that, the bike lasted me >5 years without modification, only occasional tune-ups. I got rid of the bike because I was bored with it, not because there was anything wrong with it, and paid $250 for a system that was functionally the same but looked a bit nicer--the only real upgrade was a Brooks Leather saddle. Tons of bike messengers are running similar systems far harder than I am. Both music and biking have somewhat snobby subcultures that will talk crap on cheap gear to justify their own lavish purchases, but ultimately nobody can say anything about what guitar you're playing when you bust out Paranoid Android or what bike you're riding when you zip past them. Skills beat gear every time.
    • klodolph 6y ago
      $80 guitar and spending money on lessons—this goes against every piece of advice I’ve ever heard from a guitar teacher about buying your first guitar. That is, buy something good enough that it doesn’t make you miserable when you’re just starting out. A lot of $80 guitars are absolutely miserable, or will be miserable shortly after you take them home. > It's better to be a virtuoso with a Yamaha than to have a high-end Martin you can't play collecting dust in your attic. Yamaha guitars start around $160, and they’re fantastic beginner instruments. They’re also not the cheapest guitars you can get. The cheapest guitars you can get are around $80, have high action, don’t stay in tune, and my experience is that you have good odds of getting cut by the fret wire or seeing the neck warp at some point after you take the guitar home. That’s all I’m talking about—between “made as cheaply as possible” and “no expenses spared” there is this vast middle ground of “decent price/quality tradeoff”. I’m by no means an expert on guitars—but I do have a small guitar maintenance kit, and I help out friends or colleagues set up their guitars to make them a bit more comfortable and playable. I’ve seen too many “cheap as possible” guitars where my conclusion is that the guitar is unplayable and it’s just beyond my ability to make it playable.
• gwbas1c 6y ago
  Reminds me about how a lot of early Dropbox diagrams were just pencil sketches scanned and touched up. Someone had better things to do.
• Pamar 6y ago
  I totally second this and I have been doing something similar for decades, for any kind of tool/equipment.
• teepo 6y ago
  This is why I love using Emacs. It's great for one-off tasks, super customizable, and yet easily replaced by the right tool when needed.
• PaulHoule 6y ago
  The "job" here is drawing diagrams that describe a set of interrelated parts and Adobe Illustrator is not a tool for that job. The first thing you need to make the kind of illustrations he's making are the ability to automatically route the lines in a way that doesn't look embarrassingly bad. (Not the Bezier curves that Powerpoint comes with) The other problem is how to lay out the boxes so that the diagram tells a story and that is a matter of elbow grease and having pride in your work. All of the time somebody shows us a hairball of 10^6 nodes that have 10^8 connections or so and expects to get praise for it. If the culprit is lucky they might make the cover of Scientific American or something, but nobody is the wiser after looking at that type of diagram.
• bogdanoff_2 6y ago
  This reminds me of Nassim Taleb's barbell strategy. Basically, combine a low-risk strategy with a high-risk-high-reward strategy and avoid medium risk. That way, if the high-risk strategy fails, you won't be completely ruined, but if the high-risk strategy succeeds, you'll have a big reward.
• cesaref 6y ago
  I'm not happy with the premise that 'best' means 'most expensive' as i'm pretty sure anyone involved with software will undoubtably know - Oracle anyone? :)
  • pydry 6y ago
    There's a definite link between aggressive sales and how terrible a product is.
    • agustif 6y ago
      The shittier the product the more agressive sales people are required to sell it?
      • pydry 6y ago
        I'm not sure which necessarily comes first but yes.
• 3pt14159 6y ago
  I do this a different way. I think about how much I'm going to use something and try my best to over-invest in what is typically cheap and could last years and under-invest (or avoid all together) in what is expensive or could last less than a year. Pen: Very expensive. Sunglasses: Very expensive. Phone: Very expensive. Laptop: Very expensive. Shoes / most clothing: Midrange, since they don't last long, but they're not that expensive in the first place. Car: Non-existent. Housing: Far cheaper than I could afford. Same thing when it comes to tools. I'll buy an expensive utility knife and a cheap jackhammer. Unless I were going to jackhammer for a living, it isn't used much and it's a reasonably expensive tool in the first place so why over pay for it?
  • itsoktocry 6y ago
    >Sunglasses: Very expensive. This one is confusing. Sunglasses are 90% fashion. What exactly are you getting with an expensive pair? I take the opposite route. Cheap sunglasses that I'm unconcerned about dropping, sitting on, or leaving behind.
    • klodolph 6y ago
      I have one pair of designer sunglasses that I picked up on sale. They are comfortable to the point that I can barely feel them. They also look really good. I also have a ton of $10 sunglasses from street vendors and online stores. For my taste, all the mid-range sunglasses are super boring and make you look boring. Great for going out and meeting other boring people. Everything cool is either some cheapo monstrosity that you find from a street vendor or online store for $10, or from a designer brand. If you don’t care about fashion then go ahead and buy boring sunglasses.
      • Harlekuin 6y ago
        > all the mid-range sunglasses are super boring and make you look boring. Great for going out and meeting other boring people. Found this comment rubbed me the wrong way - seems insane to me to judge the boringness of a person by the price of their sunglasses
• den01100100 6y ago
  I play bass, and my advice for people who are new to an instrument is to invest a bit of money. (For bass guitar, this means spending $250-$350 for your first guitar). You can buy a bass for under $100, but many of these guitars cannot be set up properly. The strings sit really high, so you need to apply a lot of pressure to play (the alternative being that they buzz against the frets). Learning on an instrument like that adds a lot of frustration. What's worse, it can teach you a lot of bad habits, like over-gripping.
• adregan 6y ago
  Interestingly, no one asked me what software I used when I created diagrams in the vector graphics app sketch[0], but once I started using ascii diagrams using monodraw[1], everyone wanted to know what I was using. I find the aesthetic extremely "precious;" that's why I do it. Affectations are memorable. 0: https://www.sketch.com/ https://www.sketch.com/ 1: https://monodraw.helftone.com/ https://monodraw.helftone.com/
  • jabroni_salad 6y ago
    ASCIIflow is nice if you want something that can run on a not-mac. Typing out your ascii is a little tedious. I would rather freehand it in mspaint. http://asciiflow.com/ http://asciiflow.com/
• jibbit 6y ago
  I believe it is Stewart Brand’s maxim
• toto444 6y ago
  As a data scientist I interpret this as : if you can do it in SQL, do it in SQL. Once you really can't improve your, say, recommendation engine with SQL move to ML/DL. And sometimes it is better not to know anything about deep learning because the tech debt is not worth it it the medium term.
• mrzool 6y ago
  Surprised nobody mentioned draw.io[1] so far. John should give it a try :) 1: https://www.draw.io/ https://www.draw.io/
• nine_k 6y ago
  I agree that an ASCII diagram helps concentrate on the content by making the attention to the irrelevant impossible. But it's way clumsy and hard to edit when you need to change the text and move the boxes because of that, making it... not the best tool for the job. I would take Graphviz [1], or went to https://plantuml.com/ https://plantuml.com/ and drew a nicer diagram while using fewer characters. Also, a much more easy to edit one. So no, don't take "the worst tool for the job" unless you're masochistic. Instead, realize what the job is really about, what is important and what is not, and then take the best tool for that important part, which would free you from ever having to deal with the irrelevant details. [1]: https://graphviz.org/Gallery/directed/hello.html https://graphviz.org/Gallery/directed/hello.html
  • jerf 6y ago
    "But it's way clumsy and hard to edit when you need to change the text and move the boxes because of that, making it... not the best tool for the job." Original article says "I’m not doing this completely bare-knuckles. Emacs has tools like artist-mode that make it easier than manually positioning every character." See: https://youtu.be/cIuX87Xo8Fc?t=149 https://youtu.be/cIuX87Xo8Fc?t=149
    • nine_k 6y ago
      This is good, but again this is a solution like using a vector drawing program, only on a slightly weirder canvas. You still care about what your boxes look like, and fiddle with them. Graphviz removes this concern. You say "I want a chart with nodes connected like so", and `dot` provides just that.
• DizzyDoo 6y ago
  Sometimes using less-than-the-best tools directly leads to better products with smoother development cycles. I'm an indie games developer and I develop on a machine that is the 'Minimum Hardware Requirements' for my games. So, if you visit the Steam page for my current game, the Minimum Requirements are just the specs of my computer, which would be considered mid-range when I built it in 2016, and now is very underpowered. The plus-side to all of this is I know my game runs well on lower spec hardware. There's a confidence that I have that it'll perform decently on 99% of computers and laptops/macbooks. If something runs slowly then I know I can't fudge things in the release build by assuming/hoping it'll run okay on the majority of computres, but I also know that if I do need to optimise something then it's not premature, unnecessary optimisation, which helps me use my time properly.
  • bosie 6y ago
    Though this seems only relevant if running on lower spec hardware (mid range 2016 machines) is actually relevant to the product. If it isn't and customer would rather have better graphics at a higher cost of running it, you are developing against a metric of success which is unfortunately wrong.
    • schwartzworld 6y ago
      Yes, hence OPs use of the word "sometimes"
    • WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
      Alternatively, Factorio is known for being low powered enough a toaster can run it. Someone who can't afford a fancy computer can afford your game.
• claydavisss 6y ago
  Who other than a dilettante or a tinkerer has enough time on their hands to indulge some strange masochistic urge to use obviously-worse tools? John probably doesn't have anything in his life that needs to be done right away so he can navel-gaze like this. The rest of us need to get things done. I haven't spent thirty years in this industry just to throw away progress and the last minute and wear a hairshirt for the yucks.
• timwaagh 6y ago
  Dunno. If you'd need a slightly better tool than ASCII, perhaps Adobe would still be a ridiculous answer.
• randtrain34 6y ago
  https://app.diagrams.net/ https://app.diagrams.net/ is the modern version of ascii diagrams
• TLightful 6y ago
  Decent. Reminds me of the timed I designed a decent part of our house in Excel.
• tristor 6y ago
  I follow a completely opposite model. I research and learn as much as I can about something before committing to it and get the best equipment I can afford. Consequently, I’ve enjoyed all my hobbies over the years and find myself going back to things often. I have never regretted investing in quality tools. It’s not necessary to buy the most expensive option, but prioritizing quality and ergonomics over price is the right play (at least for me).
  • gk1 6y ago
    > I research and learn as much as I can about something before committing to it For me, the time I end up spending on research and the mild stress I feel when trying to make a decision is not worth it at the very beginning.
  • wrycoder 6y ago
    Agree. I buy high quality tools and keep them for life. I have a toolbox full of Craftsman tools that are about 60 years old, which are enough to completely rebuild a car - and have done so several times. I have 50 year old garden tools that have decades of life left. The handles get a quick sanding and a coat of linseed oil every year or two. We do, however, wear out pitchforks in about 15 years: the tines get too short! If I bought crappy tools, I'd have a life full of crappy tools, which is not my style. I don't buy gold plated or frilly tools, though.
• drol3 6y ago
  I like the idea. Not sure it works on its own, but something like "Investment in tools should be proportionate to your knowledge about the domain" seems reasonable. Beginner? Pick an cheap tool. Expert? pick the best tool :)
• fatbird 6y ago
  The same idea goes for art supplies. When you're learning to paint, the cheap paints are good enough for your skill level while you learn the basics; when you understand why your paints are the cheap paints, you'll understand the value of the expensive paints in a way you couldn't before.
• potta_coffee 6y ago
  Valid reasoning but I've encountered some situations where you definitely don't want the cheapest possible object when starting out. For instance, when I was learning guitar, at the time, the cheapest guitars were junk and wouldn't stay in tune and had other problems that affected one's ability to use them to practice music. A more expensive instrument is worth it because a beginner stuck with the absolutely lowest tier instrument may never get started because it's so bad. I still think it's wise to get a modest instrument though.
  • titanomachy 6y ago
    Yeah, I found the same thing with bikes. I hated riding bikes until someone gave me a used but nice road bike. It was an entirely different activity than riding the cheap, heavy bike I had before.
• VBprogrammer 6y ago
  I have a decently expensive Bahco socket set. I find that because it's expensive I always know where it is in the house, I never leave it behind in the shed when I move, I always make sure each tool goes back in its proper place after I've done with it. I tend to find that I treat cheap tools with a lot less care and attention. Flaws in their design (e.g. susceptibility to rust) takes care of the rest. Maybe it's just a quirk of my personality but I'd have spent almost as much replacing cheap tools. Besides, it cost about two hours worth of labour at hourly rates in my area so one decent job and it's paid for itself.
• pgt 6y ago
  I recall Jason Fried talking about he uses a fat whiteboard marker (as opposed to a thin marker) during concept design sessions to resist the temptation to start working on details too early.
• arh68 6y ago
  I think an analogy is for buying any tool T, buy your first T at Harbor Freight, then for your replacement T maybe look for a Makita/Milwaukee/&c or even Snap-On/MAC. For many kinds of tools, this seems sensible to me. Exception to the rule being safety equipment.
• commandlinefan 6y ago
  When coding in Java, I usually start with a shell script that compiles the code rather than, say, a POM or a Gradle build - I don't upgrade to a dedicated build system until a) the shell script becomes more trouble than it's worth or b) I have to share with somebody else. There's something to be said for having complete control over every aspect of the build.
  • augusto-moura 6y ago
    I find Gradle pretty straightforward when it comes to compiling Java projects, you can customize and add options even dynamically like a shell script
  • lmm 6y ago
    I disagree. Having complete control just gives you the chance to micromanage build steps and get bogged down in the details. I start with the most minimal POM possible - just listing dependencies - and firmly resist any custom build steps or even custom configuration. That way everything is standard, my build will be cross-platform and IDE-agnostic, and anyone else who picks up the codebase can immediately understand the build and be productive. If I absolutely need some custom build step, then I'll go all the way to making a proper, first-class maven plugin. I'll write it in proper production-quality Java with unit tests, code coverage and all the rest of it. IMO customising build steps in a scripting language (whether that's shell, Gradle, or even something like Python) is exactly the middle ground that you want to avoid. You can waste lots of time fiddling with how your build is structured, and it's still going to be less maintainable.
• soneca 6y ago
  I have a similar rule of thumb for learning to code: never buy educational content (video, course, books) if you can't evaluate the value of that content by yourself. The outcome is learning a lot from free content (there is a lot of it out there for software development) until you know precisely what do you need to learn in more depth and which is the resource that has it. The difference is that in software development educational resources, the cheapest ones are not necessarily the worst. There is almost no correlation between quality and price in most topics. So the phrasing would be more like "Start with the cheapest resource for the topic" (which most of the time means free). I used this principle myself while learning to code and it worked out great. I could get a good first job as a frontend developer without buying any learning resource (freecodecamp.org + official documentation + posts/tutorials + stack overflow). If you can't evaluate for yourself if something is worth buying, and have to trust another person of its value, you are not ready for that content yet.
• loxs 6y ago
  I did this (unkowingly) with photography equipment. Didn't work out. 1. I started with a "nice" bridge camera - the Panasonic Lumix LX100. I liked shooting with it but I quickly hit its limitations and because I loved photography... 2. decided to go full-frame and I bought the Canon EOS RP. Now I'm completely overwhelmed with all the gear, the huge lenses, tripods etc. I definitely shoot less than with the Lumix, as now shooting requires much more ritual and forethought. In hindsight I should have bought a Micro Four-Thirds interchangeable lens camera, as I was absolutely content with the quality of the Lumix, just wanted a "faster" system with better controls.
  • CarbyAu 6y ago
    I followed much the same path as you. And then I did buy the Micro Four Thirds camera for an overseas holiday. It was better enough to satisfy my craving for manual settings and RAW output. But it was bulky enough for it to be a decision "to take it" anywhere and expensive enough not to leave in the glovebox/bag/convenient-nearby-place. Ok compromise for travelling for the DLSR types but maybe the fullframe sony rx1 would've been better. But wife can pick up almost any camera and instantly make a much better picture than me. I suck at composition. Or I am biased towards my wife. Who knows. Either way, I ditched it all and now just use the smartphone(Open Camera), but try to get better at composition...
• rosshemsley 6y ago
  "if you need a tool, buy the cheapest one you can find. If it’s inadequate, or breaks, or you use it a lot, then buy the best one you can afford" I don't know how I feel about this... The unsaid thing here is that you will end up landfilling the broken or inadequate tool and buy twice what you need. These days, if I'm going to put money into buying material goods, I feel they have to meet at least a minimal "this isn't going to end up in landfill after the first time I use it" bar. A lot of cheap tools barely meet this level, sadly...
• CM30 6y ago
  Yeah, got to agree with this article, and not just for the reason mentioned. No, it's also because the best tool for an expert is often not the best tool for an amateur, and an overly expensive solution that works well for a pro can end up giving you terrible results when a newbie tries to use it. See for instance, Magento, which is perfectly good as an eCommerce solution for large companies with a full team of developers working on the site full time, but will probably be overkill for a small mom and pop business with one far less experienced guy doing the web deveopment side. Or high end audio/video production equipment, which will probably be way too sensitive/finicky for someone without much experience in the field.
• bborud 6y ago
  There is one case where going for a bad tool can be risky: when the cost of migrating away from it grows over time.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• bob1029 6y ago
  I don't know about worst tool. I would prefer to just say most expedient or accessible tool for the job. Something that you can hack together in 5 minutes that gets the spirit of the task accomplished and doesn't lock you in on something more heavy-handed. The key with it being accessible or expedient is that you can iterate at a higher frequency. If you start with a tool that is legitimately terrible just for the sake of saving money, you may end up sacrificing more time than you otherwise would have wanted to on something slightly more expensive. There is a balance across lots of variables here. For me, the biggest concern is turnaround time on features. In some cases, taking weeks to do it right is the best option. In others, continuing to string along the hacky approach is best. Long term vs short term concerns. It's impossible to come up with 1 rule for everything unless you want to leave a lot of productivity on the table.
• TheRealNGenius 6y ago
  He might have read this from Adam Savage. This is as close as I can find https://twitter.com/donttrythis/status/941149124497305600 https://twitter.com/donttrythis/status/941149124497305600 or here in the reply? to the tweet (i don't use twitter) https://twitter.com/scottcale/status/941310140392857601 https://twitter.com/scottcale/status/941310140392857601
• keithnz 6y ago
  This guidance is what I like to think of as something to help shape ones mindset rather than a golden law. It can help you make a choice for lack of better information. But there maybe better ways to make a choice if you have better information. Also I notice a number of people seem to be mistaking the article as saying buying the "Best". But it's actually best you can afford, which puts a lot of people in the midrange. The word "afford" gives you a lot of wiggle room about what that exactly means for you. The other thing I think is important that many people are bringing up is for domain X then the cheapest you will fail or have a hard time (ie, they have better information). But the guidance ISN'T that buying the cheapest will work out fine for you, it is directly saying it may not work out at all, so, you should fail quick on "tools" that are not working out or are problematic. So it's trying to help you converge on a solution for lack of better information. Because there is plenty of domain Ys where the cheapest will work out fine for the limited use you have.
• mikeruhl 6y ago
  I use this for tools. From Harbor Freight to Dewalt if I use it. Anyways, in the author's context, I've been using Miro.com for all of my diagrams. I love it. If you ever want to upgrade from ASCII art, check it out!
• gumby 6y ago
  A more practical example than his (ascii drawing) is: always use the system libraries when writing code. “But vector/map/... has too much overhead!” Naah, getting your code working is the hard part. Only if the code survives is it worth looking to see if the standard String code is costing you a lot, which case you can replace it.
• peacefulhat 6y ago
  You don't have to do this because there are often good recommendations for cheap tools.
• superlopuh 6y ago
  A related principle: when given a choice between a subscription and a one-off purchase always take the subscription until you've paid the price of the object. Most of the time I cancel the subscription, so the principle pays for itself in amortized cost, and I spend at most twice as much money in the worst case
• vmurthy 6y ago
  The article hits the nail on the head .. somewhat. I've found that asking a slightly deeper level question more helpful personally. In the article's example : What are we trying to do ? Show a diagram. While it is tempting to ask "What tool should I use", perhaps it is worthwhile thinking "What is the deeper need here"? If it is communicating with stakeholders (duh), can I get away with a pencil sketch and digitise them? This way, I have shaved a bunch of time learning ASCII tools or Adobe Illustrator. Kind of fits in with my (borrowed) mindset of "Doing things that don't scale" [0] Of course, if I find myself doing pencil sketches all the time , it is worthwhile investigating better ways. [0] https://www.inc.com/business-insider/paul-grahams-counter-intuitive-startup-advice-do-things-that-dont-scale.html#:~:text=Paul%20Graham%3A%20%27Do%20Things%20That%20Don%27t%20Scale%27%201,single%20user.%206%20Don%27t%20have%20a%20big%20launch https://www.inc.com/business-insider/paul-grahams-counter-in....
• ccanassa 6y ago
  I usually buy the best tool that I can afford, my reasoing is: - This forces me to research first, if I am dropping €500 on a new piece of woodworking equiment I want to make sure that's not going to be wasted. - There is a better market for used expensive tools and they can sell for a even higher price than a new one (I am looking at you Festool Domino) - I pet my expensive tools. The cheap stuff just get throw around and get lost. - There is a argument about buying a cheap one first and then once it breaks you get a better one. That doesn't really work for me, several of these cheap tools can last for ages. - Good tools requires less skill to use; they just do their job. With cheap tools you have to account not only your lack of skill but also deviations introduced by the tool.