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I continue to be haunted by something a good artist friend used to say: "Don't obsess over your tools. They are not the goal". This would ring in the back of m
by guns 14y ago
I continue to be haunted by something a good artist friend used to say: "Don't obsess over your tools. They are not the goal".
This would ring in the back of my head as I spent many hours configuring my editor / shell / terminal setup. It felt like a guilty pleasure.
It dawned on me however, that what had drawn me to programming in the first place was a sublime text editor (TextMate), and that my business is in fact tool-building. My love for computing tools and the experience of using them reflects in the kind of software I build for clients.
On top of this, evaluating and obsessing over hacker's tools isn't confined to picking between models at the hardware store. I have pored over (and patched, however minor) bash, vim, tmux, rxvt-unicode, and many other programs that I use every day.
These things may well be rationalizations, so here's a simpler justification: the time I invest into my tools have made my experience of sitting down in front of a computer incredibly enjoyable. I once lived computer free for three years because I detested the uninspiring (and frustrating) experience of Microsoft Word and Windows 98. If that was what computing was, I wanted nothing to do with it.
- cabalamat 14y ago> the time I invest into my tools have made my experience of sitting down in front of a computer incredibly enjoyable I've found that too, asnd it helps me be productive. I run MediaWiki on my PC as my internal documentation system. I used to use it with the default skin, which looks a bit meh, but I recently added my own skin, which looks a lot nicer. I found that every time I looked at the wiki after that, I got a little hit of joy from looking at a nicely-skinned page.
- michael_fine 14y agoSimilarly, that's why almost always, the first thing I do when building a web app is to design it, because it makes those 40+ hours far more enjoyable to be staring at an attractive program.
- bergie 14y agoI've once watched a group of sculptors argue about the merits of various drills for a whole evening. So yes, artists also obsess over their tools just like we do over ours.
- koglerjs 14y agowell, that's the fun of specifics, innit?
- dinkumthinkum 14y agoWell, the poster said a "good artist" told him that. Even so, perhaps your group were good artists but misguided on just this one issue. Another anecdote, I saw a thing on ice sculptors; there were two really amazing artists and they were arguing about which one used better tools. One artist used an angle grinder exclusively for almost everything and the other used hand chisels exclusively for detail. It doesn't seem like the tool matters that much as long as it is fits a certain percentage of needs.
- bergie 14y agoI don't think these were thinking that a particular tool is necessary for creating good art, either. It is more about the fact that any craftsman becomes quite attached to their particular tools. This is the root cause of the endless Vi vs. Emacs debates as well.
- paddymcdonald 14y agoI have a hammer that I absolutely love, I never need to use another tool for anything
- rufwork 14y agoFair, though the question is less, "Do we need good tools?" than "What makes a great tool?" VIm and Emacs both make great tools. But nobody comes to VIm knowing how to use it intuitively. Its features make the investment worthwhile. Same with Sublime Text 2. There are features that instantly save time (the tiny thumbnail of your entire file makes traversal a breeze for me) and others than take a while to get used to (ctrl-P). The question shouldn't be, "Should I waste time looking at ANY tools?" especially in the ironic context of, "I've used two decades of my life learning VIm and now it ROCKS." It's, "What does this tool have that makes it worth using?" That answer for me so far is speed, flexibility, and features, like the two above. I'd hoped to see more on those topics here. When I want to use VIm, I do. When I want to use JEdit, I do. As the previous fellow replying says, you don't simply use hammers. Figure out where this tool -- which is a very good one -- fits. Its best feature might be its untimed trial period. Give it a shot.
- geekam 14y ago>>> "Don't obsess over your tools. They are not the goal" Actually, someone from design background once told me "Good tools produce great work".
- maigret 14y agoRather, I would say - bad tools may prevent you from doing great work.
- ThePherocity 14y agoI vehemently disagree with this; good tools help get out of the way to allow you to do good work. If your tools are producing work, then you aren't.
- geekam 14y agoMaybe a better one would be "Good tools let you produce great work"?
- elviejo 14y agoMy father is a car mechanic and once said nothing more powerful.than having the right tool for the job. and he also said that your tools protect you.. the day you get a flat tire is exactly the day you put your tools out of the car...
- dinkumthinkum 14y agoFor mechanical things, I think your father is exactly right. For programming and text editing, I think it is different. If you don't have the right sized socket wrench, probably all you are going to do is destroy whatever you are working on. With programming, i.e. editing text, it's a different story.
- gcr 14y agoAt the extreme case, I'd trust a vim or emacs or eclipse user with my next big project far more than I'd trust a user who willingly uses notepad.