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I would never degrade the effort spent on shop fixtures or tools. Often the highest Echelon of any craft is toolmakers. It is certainly true in machining. I kn
by abakker 5y ago
I would never degrade the effort spent on shop fixtures or tools. Often the highest Echelon of any craft is toolmakers. It is certainly true in machining.
I know very little about software engineering as a trade, but it seems that half the stuff on HN is tooling used for making software. It is obviously valuable.
- saalweachter 5y agoAt the same time, it's important to remember the maker's conundrum: "Wait, wasn't I making these tools for a reason?" If what you intend to be working on is tools, more power to you, but it's very easy to get caught up in building a new workbench, or adjusting the settings on your window manager, or writing a new programming language, and forget the thing you actually intended to make at the beginning using the tool you stopped to make. At some point you have to stop making tools and start making other things. (Unless you're the GP, who is just consciously making tools for fun.)
- sgtnoodle 5y agoI got a 3D printer years ago to use on a specific hobby project, and I ended up not touching the hobby project again until about 6 months ago. I've rebuilt my 3D printer numerous times though!
- mattbrewsbytes 5y agoMaybe a better way to say it is that I enjoy the process of building something with wood. If I suck at it and the end result isn't great, at least I still enjoyed the process and tinkering. Its funny that I'm very pragmatic with software work though. I don't spend any time looking into new/upcoming languages or tinkering with compilers or whatnot unless I have a work project. It seems like a waste of time since the software world turns very quickly.