| For things like vi, I'm developing the "left handed mouse" analogy: Many mice are ambidextrous (e.g. the Apple puck). Most are weakly right-handed with a slightly assymetrical shape. Some are very strongly right-handed (e.g. vertical mice) and can't be used sensibly in the left hand. So left-handed mice also exist. Some people are naturally left-handed. We (as a civilisation) used to treat this as aberrant but have now recognised it, and that different tools suit different people. I believe that something similar exists in programming tooling in relation to how people think about programs. There are clearly some people who have a strong, unusual "handedness" and have developed tools to match (e.g. Colorforth). A few people discover these and find them amazingly usable. Most other people find them baffling. Consider the three propositions: a) Jimi Hendrix played guitar in the wrong way with the strings in the wrong positions b) Jimi's configuration was correct and everyone else was wrong, because he's producing the objectively best music c) Jimi was left handed, and had constructed an accomodation which worked for him but should not be expected to work for anyone else Far too many discussions of programming tools devolve into (a) versus (b), largely because people want there to be an objective ranking of who the best programmer is and what the best tools are, rather than allowing for diversity of (programmer x tool). |
Pretty sinister, if you ask me.