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The worst tool for the job

johndcook.com

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Re: The worst tool for the job

#151

Post by guerrilla »

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…

If you think about it, the text editor for diagrams actually is mid range because you could alternatively do the using "echo", enter it in binary, even on punch cards or pen and paper.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#152

Post by keithnz »

throwaway98797 wrote: post #43
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…

Disagree. I gave up on so many sports cause of faulty uncomfortable equipment. As child we had such shitty swim goggles that they would leak badly. For 10 years I swam without them and kept my eyes hurting eventually couldn’t take it and quit cause of eye pain. As adult with money bought a nice pair for $20 and realized not all goggles leak.

well, if you apply the principle in the article, if they leaked badly, they would be regarded as inadequate, so you'd swap them with the best you could afford.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#153

Post by bob1029 »

I don't know about worst tool. I would prefer to just say most expedient or accessible tool for the job. Something that you can hack together in 5 minutes that gets the spirit of the task accomplished and doesn't lock you in on something more heavy-handed.

The key with it being accessible or expedient is that you can iterate at a higher frequency. If you start with a tool that is legitimately terrible just for the sake of saving money, you may end up sacrificing more time than you otherwise would have wanted to on something slightly more expensive.

There is a balance across lots of variables here. For me, the biggest concern is turnaround time on features. In some cases, taking weeks to do it right is the best option. In others, continuing to string along the hacky approach is best. Long term vs short term concerns. It's impossible to come up with 1 rule for everything unless you want to leave a lot of productivity on the table.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#155

Post by Nacraile »

tikhonj wrote: post #134
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 is harder than it sounds because the bottom of the market is often well below a minimum viable level, to the point that you're actively making learning harder for yourself if you go there. You might not feel the difference between $100 and $1000 shoes, but Walmart has $15 shoes which are probably bad enough they make it harder to start running and learn proper technique. I've experienced this pretty directly wit…

I think this is kind of missing the "if it's inadequate" clause of the heuristic. In your example, the painful boots were clearly inadequate, and by the heuristic, it was time to upgrade to the best equipment you could afford ;)

Skiing does make for some examples of a couple weaknesses in the heuristic, though:

First the "best equipment you can afford" part is pretty poorly defined. Suitability of ski equipment is contingent on the skill of the skier and the type of skiing, so you can't just pick the most expensive thing and expect it to be the best for you. Skis are especially nasty in this regard in that the most expensive equipment often makes performance trade-offs that are actively hostile to beginners or use in the wrong conditions.

Additionally, ski equipment is consumable (at least in the hands of an aggressive skiier), which largely invalidates the cost-optimization rationale of the heuristic.

Skiing probably wants a somewhat modified heuristic, along the lines of "Start with the cheapest tool, use it until it wears our or you find an intolerable problem, and then choose a replacement that solves the problems with the previous iteration."

Re: The worst tool for the job

#156

Post by keithnz »

This guidance is what I like to think of as something to help shape ones mindset rather than a golden law. It can help you make a choice for lack of better information. But there maybe better ways to make a choice if you have better information.

Also I notice a number of people seem to be mistaking the article as saying buying the "Best". But it's actually best you can afford, which puts a lot of people in the midrange. The word "afford" gives you a lot of wiggle room about what that exactly means for you.

The other thing I think is important that many people are bringing up is for domain X then the cheapest you will fail or have a hard time (ie, they have better information). But the guidance ISN'T that buying the cheapest will work out fine for you, it is directly saying it may not work out at all, so, you should fail quick on "tools" that are not working out or are problematic. So it's trying to help you converge on a solution for lack of better information. Because there is plenty of domain Ys where the cheapest will work out fine for the limited use you have.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#157

Post by toast0 »

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…

Don't worry so much about Guitar Center... I think the core advice of buying a cheap (used?) X at an X store instead of a cheap X at a general purpose store is pretty good. Your local bike store isn't going to sell the same low end bike shaped objects as a department store or even a chain sports store. Your local music shop is less likely to sell awful guitar shaped objects than Walmart. Etc.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#158

Post by mturmon »

Kinrany wrote: post #17
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 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?

Even tradespeople (like union electricians) have this same dispute. In the US, one of the favored brands in the trade is Milwaukee Fuel 18v. Many electrical pros swear by these tools, even to the point of mildly judging people who use consumer gear on paid jobs.

But: other electrical pros will in turn mildly judge the Milwaukee-loving contingent as paying way too much for the logo. Tales will be told of Makita or Ridgid (the latter, a Home Depot house brand) 18v rigs that have outperformed more expensive gear in real conditions.

So, it's fun to talk about, but it seems fundamentally undecidable, at this level of granularity.

At lower levels of granularity -- specific tools -- there are a few legendary products that have been made consistently high-quality for so long that they're almost universally acknowledged to be worth the money, and also that there's little point in paying more. One example that comes to mind is Klein linesman's pliers.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#159

Post by projektfu »

tikhonj wrote: post #134
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 is harder than it sounds because the bottom of the market is often well below a minimum viable level, to the point that you're actively making learning harder for yourself if you go there. You might not feel the difference between $100 and $1000 shoes, but Walmart has $15 shoes which are probably bad enough they make it harder to start running and learn proper technique. I've experienced this pretty directly wit…

True for bicycles too. The gears get bent by the chain, the tires pop at normal pressure, the brakes don’t stop the bike. Buying the cheapest bike from a reputable bike shop is much better than buying one from Walmart.

Re: The worst tool for the job

#160

Post by mikeruhl »

I use this for tools. From Harbor Freight to Dewalt if I use it. Anyways, in the author's context, I've been using Miro.com for all of my diagrams. I love it. If you ever want to upgrade from ASCII art, check it out!
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