Seth Godin: Hammer Time

A nice point, but isn't this post a bit hollow? After all, you'd expect someone like Seth Godin to put forward a well-supported argument about a radically new approach (new hammer) and its benefits?

There's a long tail for hammers.<p>The massive burst in innovation that we've seen in the past several decades is caused by a bunch of people making a bunch of new hammers for a bunch of different problem types. In addition, there are certain hammers -- like statistical methods or X-rays or computer networking -- that can be applied to a ranging scope of problems that no one ever predicted before.<p>Seth is right, you have to find the right tool for the job. But your job is also to imagine and construct a new hammer.

Not a bad point. People tend to solve problems in the way that they tend to build problems (tautologically.)<p>At least in my own experience, engineers tend to solve problems by building things to solve the problems. Sometimes the answer is to remove parts until those problems don't exist.

"Metaprogramming" in its various forms is often about switching tools to the most appropriate one. Instead of opening that can with only a hammer, you first fabricate a screwdriver.<p>(Disclaimer: I advocate metaprogramming. Also humor.)

Neat base idea, but the blog post is just business porn. He's just restating the old adage about getting stuck in ruts.<p>The key skills is being able to tell when you're stuck using hammer because it's what you're familiar with, and he doesn't discuss that at all.

"One study found "... citation needed.