The Rookie Coder

The best tool for the job

Hello,

Following up on the same theme as my previous post, “I’m Sorry Linux” talking about how money really does make the world go round and that we really would be fooling ourselves if we thought it didnt, it got me thinking on the old theory of the best tool for the job. When writing an application various different things comes to mind. One of the biggest questions asked on forums is “Java or C#”, Ruby or Python, JSP or ASP?”. And we all together get sick of answering the same question, that usually you should just pick the best tool for the job.

But what is the best tool for the job?

When it comes to the open source community, the followers could not say a single bad thing about any of the tools they have created and on the other side the advertising team of the companies will tell you that the product they made was the best, but who do you really believe?

When it comes down to it, comparing them all can be easy as long as you don’t listen to the trolls on forums!. Here are the simply points I usually follow when it comes to picking tools.

1. Was it created for the system?
This can really go a long way. If the tool was native to windows and ported somewhat to linux, then at times it can be seen as alarm bells. When it comes to things such as programming languages where parts such as libraries really do matter, why shoot yourself in the foot and use something that was ported in some half ass way and barely documented adding hours of headaches. Stick to native tools.

2. Does money back it, or does it have a strong community?
Notice how I said “Does it have a strong community?” I am not leaving out you FOSS people. If money is backing the project or tool, it really does help. People may say otherwise, but having a million dollars worth of developers hacking away on a tool does eventually make it good as would having a strong community of people digging for bugs and push out releases.

3. What will the future hold?
Always look a little into the future when it comes to picking a tool. If you pick a tool that everyone is starting to drop the support for or people are starting to show a lack of interest in it, you may be flogging  a dead horse. But yes, it can be argued that COBOL ect are still alive and well after all these years, but what about the host of other languages and tools that never made the cut because, (see point 2), the backing and interest died.

4. If its cool.
Yeah we all just like a neat little tool from time to time and all the above doesn’t matter in the slightest to stop you using it, code on my friends!