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From another angle, I think it's understandable that people like to have premium "signifiers" of their skill. A carpenter with a full set of well maintained ch
by solid_fuel 2y ago
From another angle, I think it's understandable that people like to have premium "signifiers" of their skill. A carpenter with a full set of well maintained chisels seems on first glance more likely to be a good carpenter than one who carves uses with a box cutter.
So there may be a natural drive to collect and display things that indicate skill in our chosen areas of interest.
Now, to twist this around a bit: is this "gear acquisition syndrome" a contributor to the constant churn of tools and frameworks in our field? Especially in programming, collecting and using new "gear" (libraries, frameworks, administrative tools) is essentially free - often the only cost is time.
- p3rls 2y agoI know a tradesman who works out of a bucket with a ripped up tool organizer inside that's held together with duct tape and zip ties. His tools are all falling apart and often doesn't have the correct tool and is one of the types you'll see using a wrench as a hammer non-recreationally. But still he's one of the cleverest there is, has seen every issue in the field 10,000 times and knows exactly how to handle it... but the immediate lack of respect he gets when he walks into a building is stunning. It adds so much friction to encounter.