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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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 It is by working with...Submitted by Robert Daeley on October 27, 2005 - 1:59am.
It is by working with plain text files that we get to pick a tool to work with so easily. One core principle of Unix and its pseudoprogeny has always been the use of many smaller tools, each very good at one thing, working in conjunction. (Emacs doesn't count since it's an OS by itself. ;) The same concept works with general editing. Like how BBEdit handles HTML? Open that html file there. Are you digging vim's code folding for your Python program? Have at it! Writing a blog post and want to edit it by listening for awkward phrases? Paste it into a TextEdit document and hit Start Speaking under the Edit > Speech menu. Pick the right tool for the job at hand. » POSTED IN:
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