Um, for what ever it is worth, if you want to compare "power user" carpentry
to "hand tools only" you can actually do it fairly easily on PBS in the US.
There used to be a program done by a guy who did everything by hand. I
loved to watch it, especially the parts where he cut himself badly because
there are somethings it is dumb to do with hand tools, but he was stuck with
his dumb rule. There's another show, still on, called "The New Yankee
Workshop". I love to watch it, just to count the number of power tools Norm
Abrams manages to use in a single project. (I think the most I saw in one
one hour episode was 40-something.)
Craftsmanship does *not* come from artificial rules about what tools you are
allowed to use. There were hack carpenters when there weren't any power
tools, and the cabinet makers I know who do the best work (the sort that
gets them several thousand dollars a piece for small pieces of furniture)
use every power tool they find appropriate to their work; just as they
construct and use jigs and rely on all the other "tricks of the trade".
Craftsmanship is in the way you approach what you do, not in the tools you
use to do it. And, frankly, if you wish to artificially limit your use of
tools, all you are doing is hobbling yourself.
Marty
-----Original Message-----
From: Linus Torvalds [mailto:torvalds@transmeta.com]
Sent: Saturday, September 09, 2000 5:35 PM
To: Oliver Xymoron
Cc: Tigran Aivazian; Daniel Phillips; Kernel Mailing List
Subject: Re: Availability of kdb
On Sat, 9 Sep 2000, Oliver Xymoron wrote:
>
> Tools are tools. They don't make better code. They make better code easier
> if used properly.
I think you missed the point of my original reply completely.
The _technical_ side of the tool in question is completely secondary.
The social engineering side is very real, and immediate.
It's not whether you can use tools to do the work.
It's about what kind of people you get.
You were the one who brought up the power drill analogy. I'll take it, and
run with it, and maybe you can see _my_ point by me taking your analogy
and running with it.
Yes, using a power-drill and other tools makes a lot of carpentry easier.
To the point that a lot of carpenters don't even use their hands much any
more. Almost all the "carpentry" today is 99% automated, and sure, it
works wonderfuly - especially as you in carpentry cannot do it any other
way if you want to mass-produce stuff.
But take a moment to look at it the other way.
If you want to find the true carpenters today, what do you do? Not just "a
carpenter". But THE carpenter.
I'm saying that maybe you put up a carpentry shop where everything is
lovingly hand-crafted and tools are not considered to be the most
important part - or even necessarily good. And yes, some people
(carpenters in every sense of the word) will be frustrated. They can't use
the power-lathe that they are used to. It doesn't suit them. They _know_
that they are missing something.
But in the end, maybe the rule to only use hand power makes sense. Not
because hand-power is _better_. But because it brings in the kind of
people who love to work with their hands, who love to _feel_ the wood with
their fingers, and because of that their holes are not always perfectly
aligned, not always at the same place. The kind of carpenter that looks at
the grain of the wood, and allows the grain of the wood to help form the
finished product.
The kind of carpenter who, in a word, is more than _just_ a carpenter.
[ Insert a silent minute to contemplate the beaty of the world here. ]
Go back and read my original reply to this thread.
Really _understand_ the notion of two kinds of people.
And think about what kind of people you'd like to work with.
Linus
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