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by mexicocitinluez 8 days ago
This saying has been abused 10 ways til Sunday.

"I'm using technology I know that will get us there" is not the same as treating every problem as a nail. It's making a practical choice that probably also had time constraints and other factors we don't know.
2 comments
antonvs 7 days ago
> "I'm using technology I know that will get us there" is not the same as treating every problem as a nail.

Hammering in a screw is using technology that the hammer-wielder knows will get there. You’ve just rephrased the statement.

What you seem to be saying is that in some cases, the hammer may be the appropriate tool. No-one disputes that.

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mexicocitinluez 5 days ago
How do you know it wasn't the appropriate technology?

My point is that the idiom has now come to mean "I disagree with your tech choices".

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groundzeros2015 8 days ago
I think it’s completely applicable here. Nobody who worked in the 80s or 90s would have selected this solution.
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mexicocitinluez 8 days ago
> Nobody who worked in the 80s or 90s would have selected this solution

How does this support your argument? The tech didn't even exist in the 80s or 90s.

Saying "They wouldn't have made the same choices 40 years" is meaningless in this context. There's a lot of things they wouldn't have done back then that we do today. And this is a field that has been changing by the week recently, which makes even less appropriate.

This idiom now apparently means "I disagree with your tech choices" or in your case, "Someone 40 years ago would disagree with your tech choices".

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groundzeros2015 8 days ago
Let me clear up your confusion.

I did not say they wouldn’t used react in the 90s (obviously). Anybody familiar with terminal uis (a technology which did exist) and perhaps any other ui system would not have chosen this design.

And no it’s not just me as evidenced by the many confused comments any time this is brought up.

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mexicocitinluez 7 days ago
I'm not saying confusion isn't warranted. I was just commenting about how the "to a man with a hammer" idiom has now come to mean "I don't agree with your tech choices".
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