Borg Golden Hammer

A BorgGoldenHammer is a whimsical Star-Trek influenced nick-name for a GoldenHammer that allegedly succeeds because staff is chosen who intentionally think alike and/or like the same tool/language. In other words, it succeeds not because the tool is "better" in a general sense, but because it fits the WetWare or desires of a controlled group of developers/users.

This phenomena caught my attention in the 90's when I read about an author's study that suggested that SmallTalk productivity, per their metric, was initially high in carefully-chosen teams of SmallTalk enthusiasts, but later fell to match the average of other tools when a wider audience was brought in to use SmallTalk, after training. One theory raised to explains this was that like-minded teams who choose their own tools may do better than random teams forced to use random tools.

And whether the results are due to improved morale alone ("Yay, I get to use X!"), or specific tool-to-mind-fit is also speculative.

It does suggest there actually are GoldenHammers, but only in a relative sense. -t