you want to hear something funny? well, I guess you’re not actually going to “hear” it, but anyway…
when I’m at work, sometimes I’m working alright, but I go down these side tracks and wind up working on my tools, not exactly what they’re paying me to do. I once read an email from a japanese fellow who used the perhaps unlikely word “burnish” with respect to enhancing his software beyond that which was necessary, out of a kind of pride, and a sense of craftsmanship. I couldn’t help but think of a samurai swordsmith or the like.
so that’s me with regard to my programming tools, which I’ve been burnishing for a solid 20 years now.
the funny thing is, with all the companies I’ve worked at, and all the stuff I’ve done, all the projects and software shipped, none of it really matters now, not only to me, but really to anyone, since some of the companies are out of business, the projects dead and gone, even the successful projects for the most part obsolete at this point; with a very few exceptions, nothing of all that matters to anyone at all, except that is, my tools matter, at least to me.
I’m still using this stuff, sometimes on a daily basis, and often to great or at least good effect.
so, cool.