Getting Back To Coding

New submitter rrconan writes I always feel like I'm getting old because of the constant need to learn a new tools to do the same job. At the end of projects, I get the impression that nothing changes — there are no real benefits to the new tools, and the only result is a lot of time wasted learning them instead of doing the work. We discussed this last week with Andrew Binstock's "Just Let Me Code" article, and now he's written a follow-up about reducing tool complexity and focusing on writing code. He says, "Tool vendors have several misperceptions that stand in the way. The first is a long-standing issue, which is 'featuritis': the tendency to create the perception of greater value in upgrades by adding rarely needed features. ... The second misperception is that many tool vendors view the user experience they offer as already pretty darn good. Compared with tools we had 10 years ago or more, UIs have indeed improved significantly. But they have not improved as fast as complexity has increased. And in that gap lies the problem.' Now I understand that what I thought of as "getting old" was really "getting smart."

Comments

standard "use the right tool" applies

[trybywrench]

FTFA "The reason that so many tools have become unwieldy is that they chase after certain values that add complexity but not usefulness to SMB-sized projects"

If the author of the article would just choose his tools more carefully he could have saved himself these weird rants about things that he brings on himself. It's like a bike rider lamenting how uncomfortable his racing bike seat is when he's riding it around the block.