It think it's essential to understand the problem you are trying to solve - however often that problem is how to do something better in the specialised case tha

It think it's essential to understand the problem you are trying to solve - however often that problem is how to do something better in the specialised case than the current tools that support the general case. ie why is anybody writing any new software these days when Powerpoint, Excel and Word cover all the use cases in the general case? ( I exaggerate for effect ).