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Screwdriver Narrowness Considered Harmful
Merlin Also | Oct 26 2005
Something I actually think about a lot just popped out in an email to an internet acquaintance who makes Mac software Quote: One thing to know about me (and probably a surprisingly large number of your customers and potential customers): there's very little mutual exclusivity in my software world. For example, I use TextEdit, Vim, and TextMate pretty much every day and for completely different things. To me it's like having several screwdrivers. I could be that guy who insists there's only One True and Good Screwdriver, but I prefer to keep them all handy and just grab the one I need for the job. Does that make any sense? I mean I hear these territorial pissing matches on `foo tool` vs. `bar tool`, and how the fate of the world turns on making the right decision one time, and then becoming some kind of viral evangelist. Meh. There's stuff like Quicksilver and OS X in general where you inherently have to choose a platform. But what about text editors, graphics apps--jeez, even _notebooks_? Am I the only one who employs a stable of several different tools for a certain kind of task? Esp. where one is clearly better at one portion of the task than the others? How about you? 23 Comments
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 I'm always on the lookout...Submitted by Scott on October 30, 2005 - 7:49pm.
I'm always on the lookout for new tools, but usually don't try them out unless they look absolutely fab (and have at least one screenshot posted.) For the most part, I use SubEthaEdit, but use VI to edit Unix config files on my Mac and remote servers. I use TextEdit and OmniOutliner instead of Word and Excel whenever I can get away with it. TextMate looks interesting, especially for Ruby On Rails development, but I haven't got around to taking it for a spin. As for GTD, I'm still working on my own Cocoa App for OS X. It's coming along quite nicely, except for a meddling drag and drop issue with Mail.app and implementing reoccurring tasks. Nearly all of my Cocoa development is in xCode cause I'm just too lazy to switch between applications. And, yes, sometimes I think creating my own tool is partially a way to avoid being organized. » POSTED IN:
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