Gearheads don't get it

I knew a young aspiring (and penniless) artist in Cincinnati. She took gorgeous photos. Her method? She got to know lots of gorgeous young women, made friends with them and put them at ease, waited for just the right time of the day on a suitably sunny day, called up her friends and snapped them with a disposable camera.<p>She had photos hanging in galleries and cafes taken with a disposable camera.

I don't think the analogy makes sense. Tone, with a guitar, definitely comes from the gear you use. Tone is precisely where there is so much gear and why there are so many knobs over all of it. You may recognize the style of eddie van halen playing out of crap gear, but you will not recognize the tone as anything other than crap.<p><i>Edit: If you downmod me, please explain why. I've played guitar for many years and know what I said is a fact.</i>

I found this post interesting, given that I heard a similar rant in the speaker lounge at a conference a while back—a designer was complaining loudly about people who asked her what tools she used to produce her oft-admired products (obviously, I'm anonymizing here). "MY BRAIN," she said snarkily.<p>My reaction (which I suppressed at the the time, since I was rehearsing my talk yet again) was that not everyone is out to get you when they ask about this. Not everyone expects to be able to do what you do just by picking up the same tools. Many people may just be asking out of interest, looking for alternatives to the applications they currently use, trying to improve processes.<p>Personally, I'm happy to evangelize the tools I use. I think they improve my productivity, and in general the more people using something, the better the community around and support for it.

This seems to go back to the saying "a bad programmer can write COBOL in any language"; no matter how good your tools, it doesn't prevent you from shooting yourself in the foot.

Here is an example some people on here might be able to relate to. Have you ever tried coding on a computer that isn't your own (the library, a computer lab, a friends house, etc)? You know how difficult it is, not having your own development environment and keyboard? Wouldn't you still be able to produce some really high quality code if you needed/wanted to? Now imagine if someone who was unskilled in programming sat at your computer. Would they know what to do?

I find that the quality that makes tools in general good is their ability to get out of your way and become an intuitive extension of yourself. Anything less than that, you end up fighting with and tricking it into doing what you want it to do.<p>A good camera, guitar, text editor, IDE, sports car, etc won't make someone with little skill better, but it will let someone who is excellent at what they do express themselves without fighting it.

Does not work with surgeons and ice cream scoops. Or several other things.

Tools do help a lot although. Sometimes using a debugger is the quickest way to fix a bug, and not being able to use one (because of a lack of a remote debugger) can make a 10 minute bug into a 30 minute bug.

Lack of proper tools can severely hamper your ability to excel in many fields. As a web designer, I rely heavily on my vector graphics software that can't be replaced easily by something else. The tools in this software allow me to create designs that would be impossible with other less sophisticated applications.<p>The point of this article is only valid in a fantasy world where one doesn't look too hard at the details.<p>You'd think as geeks we'd understand better the importance of killer-apps/killer-features and technical innovations for the world of the creative.

I don't know, so this is a genuine question: How much language/tool advocacy does DHH do?

I suspect, however, that there are hackers involved in (or doing) start-ups not for the sake of creating anything - but for the sake of playing with genuinely interesting technology (be it in infrastructure, multi-tiered architecture, cool programming languages that they may not get a chance to use otherwise).

How about: companies that summarily disqualify developer candidates who prefer to use Windows?

He is right about playing guitar. Tone is in the fingers -- alas.

"Startup folks that worry more about software and scaling issues then how to actually get customers and make money."<p>Dead on.

The same is true for golf.