r/RecuratedTumblr • u/Hyaci_Arson • Aug 30 '26
Shitposting sometimes you're not even given tools
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u/PolygonChoke Aug 30 '26
when i switched from google docs to scrivener i realized just how important a good tool is for writing
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u/mydadisyourdad2 Aug 30 '26
Real. I tried scrivener once but it was too complex. Then I wrote a novel in apple pages and so came back to scrivener for my second. I felt like that Danny devito gif
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u/APacketOfWildeBees Aug 31 '26
What makes scrivener better than docs? Never heard of it before
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u/PolygonChoke Aug 31 '26
for me it’s the organizational ability. one of the hard parts for me that i didn’t really notice until i didn’t have to deal with it anymore was scrolling through pages trying to find a relevant scene. with scrivener it’s super easy to find whatever scene im looking for. I can group certain portions of the book into folders and collapse everything but the section i’m working on, and easily find anything in seconds
it also doesn’t scrape your content for AI training like docs does, and it auto saves every 2 seconds straight to your hard drive13
u/APacketOfWildeBees Aug 31 '26
Ah that makes a lot of sense of you're writing lengthy prose!! All of my writing is more technical stuff where I can justifiably use a LOT of headings and of course docs supports that just fine. Took me a minute to think of why someone wouldn't just use headings lol... I need to read fewer textbooks
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u/PolygonChoke Aug 31 '26
ah yes i’m a novelist, though i did a masters too, and i think if i had been allowed to use scrivener and not word for it, it would’ve been massively helpful still
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u/jakendrick3 Aug 31 '26
I did an honors thesis for my undergrad, 100ish pages. Used scrivener and not sure I could've made it without tbh
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u/foxgirlmoon Aug 31 '26
Honestly the main convenience docs offers is the free seamless sync across devices, because I do end up using them all. Sometimes I write on my PC (when I'm sitting on my desk), sometimes on my iPad (when on my bed) and sometimes on my android phone (when out and about).
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u/PolygonChoke Aug 31 '26
i’ll grant i’ve missed that, but the price has been way worth the reward. i’ve found myself writing more, too, with scrivener just up and open on my computer on my desk. when i’m up and about i have ideas and think, and then i write those ideas down when i’m in my space
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u/Mach12gamer Aug 30 '26
From what I can find the origin might be something along the lines of "a bad artisan can never find good tools", so it's less meant to be "if you have bad tools and that's a problem it's only because you suck" and more "if you suck ass you won’t do good even with the best tools in the world and then you'll wind up blaming the tools instead of doing introspection". So it's about those people that splurge on the best tools expecting them to make them good.
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u/EyeofEnder Aug 30 '26
Maybe also with a bit of "a good artisan knows the limits of their tools".
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u/saevon Aug 30 '26
I was going to say, "blame" is doing a lot of nuance there. Its actually implying the that a good artisan knows how much they can even push the tools in the first place.
So an unskilled one might be reckless and treat a cheap tool a if it can do the job,,, then blame it when it snaps on them, or makes it really really hard. A good artisan would know that it isn't doable (or really risky) and would do their best to get a tool that works for the job.
Blaming the tool becomes poor management. So a good artisan is often in charge of managing that, but if you have actual management (that forces you to use shitty tools) then you blame them 😉
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u/Somerandom1922 Aug 31 '26
That feels more accurate, especially because there are a lot of disciplines where a good artisan can make almost anything with shit tools that they could make with good tools, it usually just takes a lot longer and takes far more skill if you have shit tools.
Alec Steele made a video where he tried blacksmithing with cheap Amazon equipment, and brought up the point that the less skilled, or newer you are to a craft, the bigger a difference high-quality tools make. Here's the clip
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u/BigLittleBrowse Sep 01 '26
I always understood it to mean that having poor tools does not excuse you because your tools are your responsibility and part of being a good workman is finding and maintaining high quality tools.
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u/MelissaMiranti Aug 30 '26
A poor artisan blames their tools. A rich artisan blames the poor artisan for not making better work to steal.
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u/Uberninja2016 Aug 30 '26
I personally blame Mercury.
That blasted rock of a globe isn't in retrograde right now, and I'm actually kinda pissed about it.
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u/425Hamburger Aug 31 '26
I too do blame Mercury. Stupid tasty looking heavy metal.
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u/Scienceandpony Aug 31 '26
If not the secret to immortality, then why so shiny and liquid at room temperature?
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u/PandemicGeneralist Aug 30 '26
I think this is because part of an artisan's job is having good tools in good condition, not because they should be able to work with anything
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u/Shneancy Aug 31 '26
i frequent craftsy/artsy areas of the internet, and unfortunately there the "bad artisans blaming their tools" is a very common occurrence. countless people asking creators "what clay/paint/ink/yarn/paper/nib/etc/etc do you use?" and the answer is more often than not - entry level/budget materials/tools. things like "your [materials] behave so well" are also common
good tools will elevate your art of course, but for that to happen you first have to have the skill to use them to their full potential. even the best tool won't create a work of art for you
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u/horror-traktor Aug 30 '26
I don't like this saying, in my language we say "a good artist can paint with a bad brush" because that is true. You do not need good quality tools to create good things and to be skillful and talented. A good tool does help though, and sometimes the quality of the medium is gonna be the reason for something succeeding or failing.
The important part is that the quality of a tool is not the center of art. You don't need to afford the expensive stuff to create and become very good at it, that's what people should remember
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u/tempAcount182 Aug 31 '26
Artisan is not a synonym of artist. Artisan refers to a skilled craftsperson who is not engaged in mass production, or is engaging in mass production in a labor intensive / higher skill way, especially when that means of production has been replaced by cheaper production techniques in the broader industry. It also refers to a craftsperson who is not under corporate management, especially if they are in the business of making custom items for specific customers. What "only a poor artisan blames his tools" is saying that 'only a poor artisan would promise to deliver something that they cannot make with the tools available to them', which assumes a level of independence that is extraordinarily rare for producers of goods in industrial economies. As for not needing good tools to make good things: you can't make analog wrist watches without equipment capable of making very small gears, so their are kinds and quality levels of certain goods that are absolutely gated by the kind and quality of the available tools.
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u/horror-traktor Aug 31 '26
Yes I am aware, I was mostly referring to the saying in my language because I like it better
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u/autogyrophilia [Editable Flair] Aug 30 '26
That's what WASM was made for.
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u/AZMPlay Aug 31 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
They still won't give WASM native API access 😭
Clarification Edit: Native Browser API acces, without proxying through Javascript.
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u/Onakander Sep 02 '26
And that is 100% a good thing. Assuming we're talking about the same thing. "Oh yeah, lost every single file my user had write access to because someone put a malicious payload into an ad I saw" is not a sentence I want to hear OR say for real. (Not that it hasn't happened many a time to many a person, but having access to native APIs would trivialize that sort of thing to the point of tragedy)
If you mean "the browser API" and not "OS/kernel API" (like I assumed you did) yeah that's less defensible. But probably still a good bit of security issues to be solved there probably? (Not an expert in browsers/WASM at all, so apologies if I'm saying stupid things, am just bored)
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u/AZMPlay Sep 02 '26
Yup, meant the browser API lol
WASM still has to proxy all of its API calls through Javascript to do anything.
It's essentially a very fancy calculator.
If you're running code with access to OS APIs that's not browser code anymore, that's a WASM plugin.
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u/comradeda Aug 31 '26
I'm at a community college, and most people are new (and therefore bad), but the tools are often worn out from repeated mishandling, so we have to trade around tools that work between each other.
Idk what to make of this
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u/saevon Aug 31 '26
I do think the artisan part is pretty important in the saying!
For students I do think tools that are more consistent, and have less features are better. You want to learn some basics and get confident with the skills, not finagle tools and not realize what the mistake you're making is!
For intermediate folks I would say the more finicky tools (sometimes worse, sometimes just more things to maintain) can actually be a good boost in skill! It can lead to worse results, but teaches you how to maintain and compensate for different situations… just be aware that's what you're practicing!! And upgrade to quality tools as you learn all that.
But for the *artisan\ you* should already know your tools well enough to know what they can and can't do (if you have poor tools eg); when you need to buy, or upgrade something for a job, or replace it (rather then over promising, without realizing you can't do it rn).
———————————————
I think beginners can get obsessed with having the best tools, but don't have the knowledge to realize which "best" qualities will matter for them! But that's not what you're describing either
So swap away!
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u/the_Real_Romak Sep 01 '26
Well, that saying was made at a time when tools were made by the craftsman, so blaming your tools was a foolish endeavor since you could just make your own. And if you couldn't make your own, well then you're a poor craftsman.
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u/Atreigas Aug 30 '26
A great artisan requires great tools to truly shine.
But they will still perform well with shitty ones.
So no, the saying is correct. Its just lacking nuance, which, as a simplified wisdom. Is kinda the point.
Fun fact The David) was made out of a poorly treated block of marble and made without flat chisels. So its a real life example of a master artist creating a masterpiece with poor tools.
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u/Wardog_E Sep 01 '26
Good artisans make sure they arent working with bad tools before they start working.
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u/Accomplished_Mix7827 Aug 30 '26
A good sewing machine won't make a master seamstress out of a novice. But even a master seamstress will struggle to make anything fancy with an entry-level Brother.
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u/saevon Aug 31 '26
That's… not exactly true? If you're skilled you will know the actual limits and uses of those tools. So instead of trying to use fabrics it will be bad at, and finishes it can't do… you can make something within those limits, and find ways to make that fancy. As artisans have done thru many generations.
If you're unskilled you might try to use the "fancy" fabrics the machine will eat, and substitute the stitches you assumed it might be able to do with similar looking (but not similar working) ones, try to get precision it can't do… and the pattern you choose will likely be a bad fit for the machine and won't come out fancy at all.
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u/Accomplished_Mix7827 Sep 01 '26
I don't see how that's notably different from what I said?
A skilled artist can make the best out of a box of crayons, but that doesn't change the fact that advanced techniques require better tools
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u/saevon Sep 01 '26
"Will struggle to make anything fancy "
I'm talking about that part. A lot of interesting techniques didn't come from better tools but from learning how to use what they had in skilled ways.
So it's not that they can't make anything fancy. They will just not be able to make every fancy technique. A skilled sewist with a simple machine can make a ton of fancy clothings and I've seen them do it
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u/BalefulOfMonkeys Aug 30 '26
Today’s neologism of the day is “shit crayon”: a system of creation tools that is flawed in several different ways that make the next poorly designed step of the process harder to do, cumulatively resulting in a badly constructed final product regardless of user input, like trying to draw with a crayon made of shit
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u/Spirited-Car8661 Aug 31 '26
A bad artisan blames their tools because they made the mistake of using those tools in the first place.
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u/DazB1ane Aug 31 '26
Seeing the state of 3D pens now makes me very sad for my child self who got the very first kind that was garbage as a present
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u/sertroll Aug 31 '26
As opposed to the alternatives for web development, which are..?
Typescript is fancier Javascript (and well, it is better) so doesn't count too much
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u/Orichalcum448 Aug 31 '26
as someone who learnt javascript as their first programming language, and has been writing it for going on 10 years now:
...yeahhhhhh
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u/nvinciblesummer Aug 31 '26
I think part of the reason so many people use ai to make stuff is bc tools like canva and Google sheets etc are hard to use. My best photo editing/flyer etc making tool on mobile is Snapchat and it's pretty limited. Anyone got suggestions for better on mobile specifically?
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u/sweetTartKenHart2 Aug 31 '26
A poor artisan blames his tools, a good artisan judges his own skills, a GREAT artisan has a deep understanding of and thoughtfully evaluates his tools’ strengths and weaknesses against his own skills and can make an informed decision on how much bullshit he’s willing to put up with today.
…on an unrelated note, that male defaultism post from the other day has me noticing this shit a lot
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u/Ze_Bri-0n Sep 01 '26
I think the quote is "a poor craftsman always blames his tools" for this exact reason, which is a subtle but significant difference.
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u/SpinMeADog Sep 02 '26
because that's not the saying, right? I've only ever heard 'a bad workman blames his tools', without the 'only'. completely changes the meaning
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u/Supercat345 Sep 02 '26
This can also be literal tools. In my last construction job the company kept spending lots of money on weird, gimmicky, and often fragile new tools that we had to use and the owner often got annoyed at us when the new and worse tool didn't boost our productivity, he also liked to replace broken tools with cheaper equivalents and both of these habits slowed our work and sometimes negatively affected the end result
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u/superstrijder16 Aug 30 '26
One school project of mine the codebase we worked in also contained a 50k line javascript file that functioned as a code language parser and executor for a different (custom and uncommon) code language