Does not work with surgeons and ice cream scoops. Or several other things.
Yeah.
I know.
But that's pretty well-understood. I don't think anyone ever thought that. No one really thinks, "Good tools==success". And so we are again faced with the typical 37signals blog entry, the shtick of which is to state humdrum truisms to a galley of fawning fanboys, who litter the comment section with love unlimited. But, as usual, they somehow still manage to deviate from more strongly stated opinions,
What do hackers want? Like all craftsmen, hackers like good tools. In fact, that's an understatement. Good hackers find it unbearable to use bad tools. They'll simply refuse to work on projects with the wrong infrastructure.
True, yes? All craftsmen demand the best tools, and there's no harm in having them, or refining them, or arguing over their merits.
The best scalpel in the world won't make you a good surgeon. Or, at least, it won't make me a good surgeon. I don't about you.
I'd prefer that over being operated on by a monkey in a fully stocked OR.
The surgeon will probably know enough to correctly weigh the risk of doing surgery with poor tools against not doing surgery at all.
A surgeon with a steak knife is preferable to me with a scalpel but not a medical student with a scalpel.
But I guess the point is scalpels are usually easier to get then surgeons (or med students). And their quality scale is more finite.