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I agree with "choose tools that make you happy", I disagree with the implied premise that all "obscure" (not very popular would be a better description) tools h

by jwr 1y ago

I agree with "choose tools that make you happy", I disagree with the implied premise that all "obscure" (not very popular would be a better description) tools have value purely because they make me happy. I have used (and continue using) many tools and solutions that are not popular. Some of them make me happy, some do not. All of them bring practical advantages. Not every good tool will become popular, and many popular tools are not good.

jclulow 1y ago
Yeah I agree with the positive part of the thesis; i.e., that it's alright to like things, and it's alright to pick things in part because you are a feeling sentient person and you should have nice things. I think the corollary that people, when looking also at the data or at constraints, are acting irrationally or its sophistry or whatever is bunk, though. Plenty of people do actually engage in some amount of evaluation, and it's intellectually lazy to disregard that because they may have also made an aesthetic or otherwise personal decision on some level as well. I use a bunch of niche software, and it's difficult or impossible to completely separate my aesthetic preferences from the concrete reasons I also have for doing so -- my aesthetic preferences and my joy in using certain things actually stem from those concrete benefits in some cases!
zzo38computer 1y ago
I believe you that there are practical advantages; often the more popular ones have several problems that are insufficient for what I am trying to do, but sometimes just that there are advantages and disadvantages of different ones and the ones that I like are different. This is true of file formats, character sets, protocols, etc as well as of programs. > Not every good tool will become popular, and many popular tools are not good. Yes. (In my opinion, there are also specific kind of features that it has or lacks, that I might think is good even if it is uncommon or bad even if it is common, but there are also features that are good as well as common, or that are bad as well as uncommon.) (However, there is also the consideration of: something might be good for some purpose but bad for others, and might be used for many of the purposes that it is bad for even though there is clearly something better.)

by jwr 1y ago

jclulow 1y ago

Yeah I agree with the positive part of the thesis; i.e., that it's alright to like things, and it's alright to pick things in part because you are a feeling sentient person and you should have nice things. I think the corollary that people, when looking also at the data or at constraints, are acting irrationally or its sophistry or whatever is bunk, though. Plenty of people do actually engage in some amount of evaluation, and it's intellectually lazy to disregard that because they may have also made an aesthetic or otherwise personal decision on some level as well. I use a bunch of niche software, and it's difficult or impossible to completely separate my aesthetic preferences from the concrete reasons I also have for doing so -- my aesthetic preferences and my joy in using certain things actually stem from those concrete benefits in some cases!

zzo38computer 1y ago

I believe you that there are practical advantages; often the more popular ones have several problems that are insufficient for what I am trying to do, but sometimes just that there are advantages and disadvantages of different ones and the ones that I like are different. This is true of file formats, character sets, protocols, etc as well as of programs. > Not every good tool will become popular, and many popular tools are not good. Yes. (In my opinion, there are also specific kind of features that it has or lacks, that I might think is good even if it is uncommon or bad even if it is common, but there are also features that are good as well as common, or that are bad as well as uncommon.) (However, there is also the consideration of: something might be good for some purpose but bad for others, and might be used for many of the purposes that it is bad for even though there is clearly something better.)