Less is exponentially more
I think as working programmers, we end up torn between two opposing perspectives with our tools (i.e. programming languages, editors, language features):<p>On one side, there's the aesthetic of minimalism. Visualize the master Japanese calligrapher seated in an otherwise empty room, table before him. One parchment, one pot of ink, one brush. And he creates the most flawless art one could imagine. Mastery means removing all artifice, leaving only pure creation.<p>On the other side, take a look at your average real workshop: a mechanic's garage, a woodshop, or an operating theatre. They are filled with tools. Mastery is knowing a hundred different implements, each carefully designed for one or a few uses. Mastery means having tamed a thousand tools and knowing which one is the perfect one to apply to the situation at hand.<p>Programming languages live on a continuum between these points. Over in Zen land, you've got Scheme and Go, maybe Smalltalk and JavaScript. Over in everything-but-the-kitchen-sink territory, you've got Java, C#, Common Lisp, and C++.<p>The first image certainly seems cooler: you as code ninja wielding vi and lambdas with deadly precision. It's the aesthetic of the artist and intellectual. The second image is blue collar, the tradesman, the kid who took shop class for four years, the vocational school graduate.<p>If we accept the second image, that says something deep and maybe unpleasant about how we look at our work. But, honestly, I think the reality is that quality professional work often looks like the second picture. Every time I go to Home Depot and get some random tool that only does one thing (basin wrench, water heater element remover, you name it), it takes a job that would be hours of frustration and turns it into child's play, <i>and the quality of the work is better.</i><p>Simplicity is a virtue worth striving for, but I think it's also valid to want <i>tools perfectly suited for certain tasks</i>. The real art is balancing the two.