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The worst tool for the job

johndcook.com

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Re: The worst tool for the job

#81

Post by kerkeslager »

klodolph wrote: post #67
kerkeslager wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $80 guitar and spending money on lessons—this goes against every piece of advice I’ve ever heard from a guitar teacher about buying your first guitar. Sure, if you're already taking lessons... > Yamaha guitars start around $160, and they’re fantastic beginner instruments. Yamaha guitars start around $160 new . If you go to a local guitar shop they almost always have playable used guitars in the Guitar shops will al…

Beginners aren’t in a position to figure out the difference between a usable $80 guitar and a barely playable $80 guitar. My experience with Guitar Center specifically is that at most stores, most of the cheap guitars on sale won’t be set up properly and some of them will be missing strings. Buying an $80 guitar from GC is a roll of the dice. If you know what you are doing you can buy a guitar for $60 or $40 on Craig…

Agreed on GC, I don't really point people to GC in general because there are so many good local music stores which are invested in their communities.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#82

Post by pgt »

I recall Jason Fried talking about he uses a fat whiteboard marker (as opposed to a thin marker) during concept design sessions to resist the temptation to start working on details too early.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#83

Post by sireat »

gk1 wrote: post #2

What a great principle. One of those things I've felt for a long time but never express so well as John did. This idea extends to many other things, like... sports equipment. Beginner runners/bikers/skateboarders/whatever will not really feel the difference between equipment that cost $100 and $1,000, so get the cheap one and use it to (its) death. If you're still into the sport by then, go ahead and get the nicer on…

There is a problem with buying the most expensive tool.

2nd or 3rd most expensive can be just as good if not better than the most expensive.

Quite a bit of research might be required. (Speakers, Laptops, Bikes, Watches it applies to most consumer goods)

It is like that joke about two rich people comparing the same tie:

How much was that tie? - $500

You fool, you should have gone to the store across the street it is $1000 there!

src: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_jokes#New_Russians

Re: The worst tool for the job

#84

Post by jmilloy »

klodolph wrote: post #4

Eh, something to be said for mid-range too. I have a 12v cordless drill. Ended up saving me tons of work over the years but by no means either the best or the worst. Musical instruments. The low-end ones tend to be true disasters. Mid-range CPUs and GPUs are wonderful. Kitchen mixers, knives, screwdrivers, soldering irons, drill presses, etc. Plenty of times the worst tool is so obviously terrible that you probably s…

I think the second-cheapest is usually the best starter product. The cheapest product requires every possible sacrifice to quality, but the second-cheapest only made the tradeoffs that make sense. You can buy the second-cheapest and still get most of the benefits mentioned in the article without having to become a mini-expert evaluating whether the cheapest option is at least safe and functional.

And I think a second-tier product is often the right high-end product to choose. The most expensive product made the highest-quality choice at every step, but the next-tier down just made as many improvements that really make sense. Luckily, once you are deciding to purchase high-end, you are more capable of evaluating the different products.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#85

Post by andrewvc »

klodolph wrote: post #44
kerkeslager wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well one caveat: at some point, you reach a level of expertise such that you can evaluate tools for yourself, and don't need rules of thumb like this. At that point a mid-grade tool might make sense. I do have some expertise in some of the areas you mentioned, and disagree with you: Musical instruments: if you're starting off on guitar, get a used Yamaha for $80 and spend as much money as you can on lessons. It's bet…

$80 guitar and spending money on lessons—this goes against every piece of advice I’ve ever heard from a guitar teacher about buying your first guitar. That is, buy something good enough that it doesn’t make you miserable when you’re just starting out. A lot of $80 guitars are absolutely miserable, or will be miserable shortly after you take them home. > It's better to be a virtuoso with a Yamaha than to have a high-e…

Guitars are special in that even expensive ones could often use a setup.

Whatever you buy, spend an extra $50-90 for a good set-up. I'd rather play a $300 guitar with a great setup than a $7000 one with a bad one.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#86

Post by arh68 »

I think an analogy is for buying any tool T, buy your first T at Harbor Freight, then for your replacement T maybe look for a Makita/Milwaukee/&c or even Snap-On/MAC. For many kinds of tools, this seems sensible to me.

Exception to the rule being safety equipment.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#87

Post by baddox »

gk1 wrote: post #2

What a great principle. One of those things I've felt for a long time but never express so well as John did. This idea extends to many other things, like... sports equipment. Beginner runners/bikers/skateboarders/whatever will not really feel the difference between equipment that cost $100 and $1,000, so get the cheap one and use it to (its) death. If you're still into the sport by then, go ahead and get the nicer on…

This principle also doesn’t work well for things that have practically no ceiling to their cost, like clothing, cars, and furniture.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#88

Post by jacobr1 »

klodolph wrote: post #54
Kinrany wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have a 12v cordless drill. Ended up saving me tons of work over the years but by no means either the best or the worst But are there cheaper drills that do the same?

The cheaper drills I’ve seen have motors that burn out or run out of torque. At least, that’s my experience with them. One of the ways you save money on a motor is by making the windings with thinner copper wires. The higher-end drills are 18V or 20V models with enough power to, you know, hang sheetrock for eight hours a day. Something that I don’t need. So I bought a mid-range drill, a relatively inexpensive 12V mod…

Also cheap drills seem to have poor batteries or electrical setups that are rough on battery life. Even 6 months of a casual usage (pulling it out every other week for some small job) might be enough to basically brick the thing.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#89

Post by bluedino »

darkerside wrote: post #48
gk1 wrote: post #2

What a great principle. One of those things I've felt for a long time but never express so well as John did. This idea extends to many other things, like... sports equipment. Beginner runners/bikers/skateboarders/whatever will not really feel the difference between equipment that cost $100 and $1,000, so get the cheap one and use it to (its) death. If you're still into the sport by then, go ahead and get the nicer on…

An example where this really doesn't apply is bicycles. When you're trying to get a child to learn to ride a bike, if you get a cheap steel bike from a big box store, it will be twice as heavy as it needs to be and can make the activity itself so difficult and unpleasant that the child decides they don't enjoy the activity.

I'd question a kid who couldn't stand to learn to ride a department store bike.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#90

Post by Swizec »

PaulHoule wrote: post #6
Swizec wrote: post #3

This extends to software. Don’t start by building an app. Start with a spreadsheet. Figure out every step, get it real ironed out. Do manual work if you have to. Only when you’re certain tht your idea solves a real problem and your magic spreadsheet is killing your will to live, then write code and make a real thing. Too often people jump into building only to realize they have no idea what they need or that their id…

There are millions of magic spreadsheets that kill people's will to live, lead businesses to make billion dollar bad decisions, etc. (We need weapons of mass construction, but spreadsheets-as-we-know-them are weapons of mass destruction.)

Billion dollar spreadsheet is a little late. Build real code around the 100k level
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