[thrwawy1234]

I really wish we had a different word than "tool" for the stuff we use to assemble and work with software. These sorts of discussions inevitably devolve into people arguing about physical tools as found in the arts, manufacturing, our other "crafts" with nothing more than vague hand waving to justify why the physical tool analogy even makes sense when applied to the things we call "tools" related to software. It's not that the word "tool" is inappropriate in a raw definitional sense, but it seems to lead to these tortured analogies. At this point as I'm pushing 30 professional years in the computing field, I'm less and less convinced that the analogy is very strong.

Amateurs and dilettantes sure like to argue strongly about it though.