New Programmer's Survival Manual

Chapter 2Get Your Tools in Order

Tools don’t make a programmer great any more than a fancy guitar makes a guitarist great. Put me on the fanciest guitar you can find, and I’ll make it sound like a washtub full of cats. But have you noticed that most great guitarists still have swank gear?

Great programmers are passionate about their tools in the same way. The right tools multiply the productivity of a great programmer. If you have the skills and a small effort can crank up your output to eleven, you’d be crazy not to take advantage of it, right?

Productivity Multipliers vs. Dividers

I talk a lot about multiplying your productivity by using tools better. However, there’s a trap that programmers can fall into: endlessly fiddling with ...