It's not lost on me that those are the opposite of software engineering! >One drawback I been told many times is that you need a lot of tools and they are not

It's not lost on me that those are the opposite of software engineering! >One drawback I been told many times is that you need a lot of tools and they are not cheap... There's truth to that. You will find no shortage of people in the woodworking community that insist that you can do woodworking with a couple of hand tools in a small space. I don't think they're necessarily wrong, but that's going to be a very limiting situation as far as projects go. Depending on your personality and wants, maybe that would work for you. But it's not for me. At a minimum I want floor space for a decent sized table saw and a workbench. Those are going to take up the most real estate among the core things. And yes, it's not a cheap hobby. If you buy used tools, you can save a lot. But you've also go to remember that lumber is pretty expensive too. You can save money on lumber by buying rough-sawn stock but then you need to spend some more money on tools to process it (a good investment once you've decided the hobby is one you want to stick with!)