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That's kind of a weird point to make. I don't see why it would be a universal truth that a good programmer is someone who invests in their tools.

I could just as easily say that good programmers are the ones who don't have sophisticated tooling setups because it means that they spend more time programming.

I'm inclined to agree with other comments that the baseline for productivity is probably lower than we think. It's fine to enjoy the process of making a perfect setup, but I don't see it as a prerequisite or strong indicator for being a strong programmer.

> I don't see why it would be a universal truth that a good programmer is someone who invests in their tools.

I have never said that. However, since you decided to go that direction. I can bite and entertain you. Here is a list of programmers, some of them I'm sure you'd even recognize. Donald Knuth, Rob Pike, Ken Thompson, Steve Yegge, Gary Bernhardt, Paul Graham, Rich Hickey, Bram Moolenaar, Richard Stallman, Anders Hejlsberg, Guido van Rossum, John Carmack, Tim Pope, Drew Neil, Sindre Sorhus, TJ Holowaychuk, Guillermo Rauch, Ryan Dahl, Fabrice Bellard.

The pattern is clear: many of the best programmers are also prolific tool-builders.

> I have never said that.

Then I misunderstood your comment. I read it as "not invested in their tools => not a good programmer."

Reading the replies to my sibling comments, I don't think we really disagree but we probably have different pictures in our heads when reading the context of this thread.

I don't even understand what point you are making. The essence of programming is tool making. Of course the best programmers make tools as do the worst. Are you seriously comparing making a terminal hot rod configuration app to, say, creating Tex?

> Being a programmer is not about configuring your development environment.

My point is that being a programmer is also about configuring one's development environment. Exactly because like you said: "the essence of programming is tool making". I just don't understand how it is different - configuring a tool, extending its functionality, adding more features to it from developing a [different] tool from scratch? Both is programming. Shit done by programmers. You don't call one bunch "pseudo-programmers" and the other "alpha-programmers" or some shit like that, right?

> You sure? Programming is an act of creation. Any [good] creative worker - artists, sculptors, novelists, potters, bakers, et al. would agree...

Yes, I'm sure. Being a painter is not about decorating your studio and choosing paints and paintbrushes. Being a sculptor is not about using the best chisels and rasps. Being a novelist is not about configuring your word processor. Being a potter is not about the selection of clay bodies and kiln accessories in your workshop. Being a baker is not about where you place your oven or what brand of mixing bowls you use.

It's surely true that any accomplished potter will have enough opinions about clay bodies, glazes, wheels, scrapers, and other tools to talk about all afternoon. But that's not what being a potter is about. 99% of potters have never made anything as beautiful or as useful as many of the pots that María Poveka Montoya Martínez coil-built from clay she dug up near her house and pit-fired with dried cow manure. She engaged with her tools, and I bet she would have yelled at you if you left one of them in the wrong place, but she wasn't defined by them.

That's what being a potter is about.

It's the same for programmers.

I see what you're saying, sure, it's an good point about craft and creativity. The essence of any art or craft lies in the actual doing - in the painting, sculpting, writing, throwing pots, or baking bread - not in endlessly optimizing the tools or workspace. It's easy to get caught up in perfecting the setup as a form of procrastination or because it feels safer than actually creating. The real work happens when you pick up the brush, the chisel, the pen, or get your hands in the clay or dough. The tools matter far less than the practice itself.

But, at the same time, sometimes, and quite often, working on tools IS the craft itself.

Building, configuring and improving programming tools is literally programming - you're writing code, solving problems, thinking about abstractions and interfaces. Every script you write, every editor configuration you tweak, every workflow you automate exercises the same skills you use in your "real" work. Understanding how tools work (and building your own) deepens your understanding of systems, APIs, and software design.

So, in essence, working on your tooling could actually make a better programmer out of you. In fact, many great, well-known programmers do actively work and maintain their tools.

Yes, I think we agree.

Not in enterprise consulting, there is very little room for creation on the software sausage factory, it is all about social skills, and outputing something that mostly works within the project budget.

The craftmanship is better left for small businesses, or FAANGS with engineers playgrounds.

Meh. You can spend hundreds of hours honing your programming environment to get a slight edge on others, or you can learn a few basic (or not so basic) soft skills and blow most other engineers out of the water because they’re all obsessed with tech and don’t realise it’s not their bottleneck

I'm sure you're not talking "soft skills vs. tools", that's a false dichotomy trap - great programmers often excel at both, and tooling mastery can itself develop problem-solving skills that transfer elsewhere.

We are in a better world today specifically because of legendary programmers who invested heavily in tooling, and even created their own from scratch. Prof. Knuth spent decades perfecting typesetting, made TeX/LaTeX, METAFONT, and literate programming tools. Linus built Git and maintains his own terminal emulator and scuba diving log app among many other things. Ken Thompson is famous for building tools to build tools. Rob Pike created text editors, window systems and numerous Unix tools. Carmack built custom level editors and dev tools for each game engine he created, he is known for obsessing over development workflows.

Can you name one person who "blows most other engineers out of the water" while not "being obsessed with tech", using nothing but "the soft skills"?

I dunno about you, I, as a software developer, rather want to be like these guys, and I think any aspiring software dev would. I spent my last weekend figuring out my new WM. Not because I had to, forced to do it, offered money for it, or because I perceive it as my "bottleneck". I don't fetishize over my tools to "get a slight edge". I do it purely out of enjoyment for the process, nothing else.

And I have watched many of my peers going through their career ladders. Sure, many of them might be perceived as more successful because while I was busy "sharpening my sword," they went into "the real world" and "touched grass" and "talked to people." Most of those are no longer doing engineering. If the goal is to "grow out" of being a software engineer, sure, then focus on the tooling might be overrated. That's not for me though; I'm happy where I am.

I don't agree at all with your assessment.

These famous people you cite are famous because they are "devs for devs". These guys were working on a _product_ (be it LaTex, games, text editors...) for which the user happened to be developers: by improving devx a little they had a lot of impact. That has little to do devs with individually spending a lot of time on their own tooling (for whom improving their devx a little has a little impact).

> Can you name one person who "blows most other engineers out of the water" while not "being obsessed with tech", using nothing but "the soft skills"?

The best engineers I've worked with were comfortable with their tools (of course, that's a requirement) but wouldn't be spending much time on incremental improvements. They'd spend time talking to customers, to PMs, to support, to leadership, learning about their domain and about how other engineers in the industry approached it. They _would_ spend time investing in tools that might be a game-changer (10x or whatever), but not things like vim configs and keyboards.

It always comes down to the same thing: you can have the best tech skills and tooling, yet a (decent) engineer who understand the domain and can communicate effectively will build a better product than you. That's hardly controversial.

> That's not for me though; I'm happy where I am.

I don't agree that it's a question of "growing out of engineering" at all (in fact I'd say it's "growing into" engineering from programming), but at the end of the day I'd totally agree that you should do what makes you happy! If you enjoy what you do and don't want to be doing the other stuff, who cares, I certainly won't be the one to tell you to change your ways!

> The best engineers I've worked with were comfortable with their tools (of course, that's a requirement)

Yeah, that's all what I'm saying.

> but wouldn't be spending much time on incremental improvements.

What is "an incremental improvement"?

My tools change depending on the work I do, and it so happens, the type of tasks I do sometimes change. When I say "working on tools," to me it's like knife sharpening. Sure, it's not impossible to cook with a dull knife, but it's helluva uncomfortable; why just not sharpen it? For me, it's like a chore I can't avoid, the only choice I can make is how to respond to it - and I choose to enjoy it. It takes less than two minutes to sharpen my knife - I have an electric sharpener. It's not tiny, but small enough so I can hold it in my hand, and it's not expensive. I also have regular sharpening stones. That process takes longer. I think I enjoy it, why not; it feels like meditation. But I don't do it every day, or even every week. I think I like how knives feel after.

So basically, I don't even understand what we are arguing about. Some engineers like extending the tools they use. Some, maybe not so much. Some spend a good amount of time doing that. They do it because they love it, and there are mostly benefits.

Some don't sharpen their knives at all - they simply throw them away and buy new set - I just don't know anyone like that in my circles. And similarly, I have never met engineers who never cared about improving their tooling even a little bit.

At the end of the day, we can probably all agree that doing the work without nicely "sharpened" tools is like cooking with a dull knife - it's not impossible; it's just why would anyone do this to themselves? It sounds anguishing.