That's where ROI comes in. Should I have spent my full income for 3 months on an IDE, vs spending an extra 2 hours with the free tools? It's not a hypothetica

That's where ROI comes in. Should I have spent my full income for 3 months on an IDE, vs spending an extra 2 hours with the free tools? It's not a hypothetical, that was the reality of my life in 2004. I had a lot of extra time, couldn't use it to make money and buying "enterprise grade" tooling wouldn't produce any extra value. The ROI of an professional grade tool would have been - "you get to sleep extra two hours and have no food for 3 months"