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I'm not sure I agree. Eventually your garage is totally full of exactly the right tool for some job or other and you can't find anything because there's tools i

I'm not sure I agree. Eventually your garage is totally full of exactly the right tool for some job or other and you can't find anything because there's tools in the way. It applies to software too. If all of the complexity in your project is placing the perfect tools and configuring them correctly, you end up with a codebase that's 90% tool-specific and even coders that think they're fluent in your language of choice have a steep learning curve if they're gonna work on your project because the complexity is no longer in the project's alleged language, it's now in 15 separate DSL's that they've never heard of. There's a balance to be struck here. I see this especially often in python projects with complex pre-commit configurations. It's like we secretly need that compilation step, even if our language doesn't strictly require it, and it just becomes a rug to hide overspecialized complexity under.

eropple 3y ago
> I'm not sure I agree. Eventually your garage is totally full of exactly the right tool for some job or other and you can't find anything because there's tools in the way. Frequently it means you can do the thing at all. I will not use my snap ring pliers again this year. Or probably next. But I am never throwing those goddamn things out because trying to do tasks that require them, without them, is impossible. And I will not get a lot of forewarning when my planer decides it's time to blow a bearing. But they're $10 snap ring pliers from Harbor Freight, not $50 Knipex ones. Get the tool to do the job, worry about the nicest tool if you do it every day.
- comfypotato 3y ago
  Having a cluttered garage and having the right tool for the job are completely unrelated. I’m not 100% following the discussion, though. Most software work can be done with vi and nothing else. Working with your hands, on the other hand, requires snap-ring-plier specific tools.
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    If your garage has room for 100 tools, and you do 101 jobs, each which requires a niche tool, they become related on the 101st job. That is, unless you start finding other garages for your tools, but even then you're paying a too-many-tools overhead cost. With hand tools it's a little harder to sell people on a tool that only does one job, so you'll reach that point more slowly. Maybe it's the 201st job. But if you look at the explosion of languages, libraries, an SaaS offerings for everything under the sun, it seems that the tech world is more than capable of overcomplicating your stack with a 1:1 tool/task mapping.
c22 3y ago
My solution to this problem was to join a makerspace collective. Now if I lack the perfect tool for a job there's a good chance the makerspace has it. If not, I buy the tool and leave it at the makerspace and my garage contains only the tools I use all the time.

eropple 3y ago

> I'm not sure I agree. Eventually your garage is totally full of exactly the right tool for some job or other and you can't find anything because there's tools in the way. Frequently it means you can do the thing at all. I will not use my snap ring pliers again this year. Or probably next. But I am never throwing those goddamn things out because trying to do tasks that require them, without them, is impossible. And I will not get a lot of forewarning when my planer decides it's time to blow a bearing. But they're $10 snap ring pliers from Harbor Freight, not $50 Knipex ones. Get the tool to do the job, worry about the nicest tool if you do it every day.

comfypotato 3y ago
Having a cluttered garage and having the right tool for the job are completely unrelated. I’m not 100% following the discussion, though. Most software work can be done with vi and nothing else. Working with your hands, on the other hand, requires snap-ring-plier specific tools.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  If your garage has room for 100 tools, and you do 101 jobs, each which requires a niche tool, they become related on the 101st job. That is, unless you start finding other garages for your tools, but even then you're paying a too-many-tools overhead cost. With hand tools it's a little harder to sell people on a tool that only does one job, so you'll reach that point more slowly. Maybe it's the 201st job. But if you look at the explosion of languages, libraries, an SaaS offerings for everything under the sun, it seems that the tech world is more than capable of overcomplicating your stack with a 1:1 tool/task mapping.

c22 3y ago

My solution to this problem was to join a makerspace collective. Now if I lack the perfect tool for a job there's a good chance the makerspace has it. If not, I buy the tool and leave it at the makerspace and my garage contains only the tools I use all the time.