[drewcoo]

> The real meaning is that it's a poor craftworker who has crappy tools, but just keeps using them

The "real meaning" of a common aphorism is the one that's obvious to everyone. That's the point of aphorisms.

If common aphorisms needed special "truth knowers" to explain them, then the words themselves might qualify as religion.

[jerf]

I don't live in Silicon Valley. I live in a place where trades are a much bigger portion of the economy, and much of my social circle is in them. This is the common meaning that everyone else around me knows. I've explained the programmer meaning of "it's OK to stick with bad tools and you should just expect the user's skills to make up the difference" to the people who actually work with physicals tools in the trades, and it is met with either befuddlement or open laughter. No one who actually works with physical tools for a living could possibly think what programmers think about tools. You only need to experience once in your life the night-and-day transition from a blunt saw to a sharp one to get it. A skilled user of saws does not sit there bashing away at wood with a blunt saw and expecting their "skill" to cut the wood. No job foreman will sit there watching you bash away with a dull saw and smile approvingly because he knows you're making it up with "skill".

This is a peculiarly programmer misconception of an aphorism that predates the entire industry of programming.