A love letter to electric power tools
https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/09/a-love-letter-to-electric-power-tools/

When I was seven or eight, I asked Santa to bring me a set of screwdrivers for Christmas. I wanted to take apart my toys to see how they worked1. I also thought they might be useful on our upcoming holiday; if the aeroplane needed repairing mid-flight I'd be able to help2!

Santa heard my plea and delivered a set of screwdrivers3. I used them for years. A few decades later and they're still in use4 - in fact, they're used a little too often.

For years I resisted the idea of an electric screwdriver. I don't know if it was pride, stubbornness, or a misplaced sense of machismo. I had two working hands, why shouldn't I exert my raw manly power and transform them into torque? Electric screwdrivers were for wimps!

And then, one day, I saw a USB-powered electric screwdriver and though "fuck it, why not?"

It was a revelation!

All of a sudden the little jobs I'd been putting off for ages were easy to accomplish. When I was tired from a day of DIY, it was a breeze to screw things back together. My hands didn't hurt after grappling with a stuck screw. I became a full convert.

Last week I had to saw some fence panels to length. "No worries!" I thought, "I've got a hacksaw!"

Two hours of sweating in the hot sun, and with only half the panels cut, I gave in and got an electric jigsaw5.  This weekend I did the rest in about 15 minutes with minimum sweating, swearing, and injury.

Why am I like this? Why do I struggle with the hard, manual way and only then reluctantly let tools help me?

I'm like this with computers as well. When I started programming in university, I was strictly a "type it in notepad" kinda guy. I couldn't afford an IDE6. What did I need "syntax highlighting" for? Auto-complete was just for lazy programmers.

And then, one day, after banging my head against my desk once too often a class-mate induced me to switch.

The same happened with PHP. I spent ages hand-crafting things. Learning the hard way what worked and what didn't. Coming up with my own bespoke solutions until it was just too much for me to manage. And then I switched to the Symfony framework.

In one sense, it is useful to do things manually. To learn what works and what doesn't. To understand where the limits of usefulness are. To be equipped to manage if you're stuck without tools.

And, it's helpful not to prematurely optimise. The British phrase "all the gear, no idea" perfectly describes someone who grabs all the (expensive) tools without the faintest idea how they work and what to do with them7.

I'm getting better, mind you. During my MSc, I asked for advice and started using Zotero before getting too far down the manual route. That saved me a huge amount of time and heartache.

So, my plea to you - and to future me - remember that's it is OK to use tools. It isn't cheating. It isn't unseemly. Sometimes, it isn't about they journey you take, it is about the destination.

Sadly, I never quite mastered the art of putting them back together again. So many R.A.T.S. never worked properly again after I'd finished with them. ↩
To this day I've never heard a plane's Captain announce over the tannoy "Is there any one on board who has a screwdriver?" ↩
It is also possible that my parents thought that screwdrivers were cheaper than whatever plastic junk was currently being advertised on TV. ↩
I honestly think they're the only birthday present from my pre-teen years I still have. All the He-Man toys8 slowly went to jumble-sales. ↩
I also got a battery, extra blades, new gloves, eye protection, some masks, clamps, and a new drill. Oh, and a battery + charger. Because I am weak-willed and need all the toys. ↩
Yes, that's how old I am. We had to pay for our C++ IDEs. And the compiler cost extra. ↩
Of course, I have the opposite problem. I spend months reading reviews and micro-optimising for the perfect cost/value ratio. ↩
THEY'RE NOT DOLLS! THEY'RE ACTION FIGURES! ↩

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/09/a-love-letter-to-electric-power-tools/

#tools