You must be in a line of work absolutely foreign to high level programming. In language ecosystems like Java, C#, JavaScript, and so forth people live and die

You must be in a line of work absolutely foreign to high level programming. In language ecosystems like Java, C#, JavaScript, and so forth people live and die by tools. You are not hired as an employee for your ability to program, but for your years of mastery on some bloated tool. Just look at any job board. Jobs posted to HN by start ups are frequently comical in this regard. On one hand they claim to be solving tough problems and hiring only the sharpest people around, but more than half the time the hiring criteria just the same tool insanity as the corporate world. If I can make more doing half the work and dealing with the same stupidity in the corporate world then why would I want to work your start up? Maybe I just like being punished. Talking bad about some tools often brings upon the same emotional fire as burning holy scripture in public. For many developers if not for certain tools, for example Java Spring or the big JavaScript frameworks, they could not program at all. They simply lack the skills to practice without such tools. In these cases tools are more than valued. They are as essential to air and food. Its unfortunate, because economically that value is entirely artificial. An employer can easily eliminate these large tools, eliminate half the associated jobs, retrain the rest of the staff to move forward without those tools and pocket the difference without lose of productivity.