Know The Tools Niche

Know the Niche of a Given Tool

One thing that seems to get lost in a lot of tool HolyWars is that often each tool has a niche or set of circumstances where it shines the most. The further you slide from that niche, the less the tool fits. But due the marketing and/or "fanboy" noise, accurate information about the niche gets lost. How many sales-persons or brochures will tell you what their product doesn't cover well? Thus, one of the hardest parts in researching a tool is finding out where it's Goldilocks Zone[1] is in relation to the competition. --top

Footnotes

[1] Borrowed from astrobiology term for the narrow orbit zone/distance where potential carbon-based life wouldn't be baked away or frozen to death.

EditHint: The name doesn't wiki-tize well. Before changing it, let's first collect suggestions for a better name:

"Know Niche of Tool"
"Find The Best Tool" (Sometimes you need a small finish hammer for delicate work, and sometimes you need a sledge-hammer to drive a steel stake or to bust something apart. So, hammer is "TheRightTool", but you need to know which hammer will "work best".)
- But that implies that some tools are universally better than others. (It may be true, but a different issue.) That's not the point the topic intends to convey. This is not about a treasure hunt. It is sort of the other side of a coin: one is looking at the abilities of a given tool rather than finding a tool with the given abilities.
  - So, as with any kind of tool, one always needs to know the limits of that tool, and what it does best. I guess, where I have trouble with this is, Isn't that what people already do automatically? This is best for that, and this one does not work well for this type of thing, etc. It is a rule that is kind of implied with tool use and ownership.
"Master Your Tools"
"Know Your Tool"
"Know Your Tool's Limits"

CategoryDecisionMaking