“It’s a poor worksman who blames his tools” has always been complete nonsense. No-one complains about imperfect tools faster and louder than a master. A master will yank a cheap or damaged tool out of your hand and yell at you for not blaming it yet
Cheap, lousy tools come from middle managers who don’t know how to do your job. Blame the hell out of poor tools and those who demand you use them
@0xabad1dea the poor craftsman blames his tools, the master just uses good tools in the first place :)
Oct 22, 2026, 2:34 PM@0xabad1dea But for the master craftsman that conversation is in the distant past.
It's taken me a long time to understand that the phrase "it's a poor craftsman who blames his tools" is not a simple sentence, but that it speaks to an understanding that a skilled craftsman chooses the best tools they can carefully, takes proper care of them, and takes responsibility for what those tools deliver.
@0xabad1dea It made sense back when a lot of craftsman were expected to make their own tools, so the quality of the tool was a reflection on the craftsman.
Today, yeah, a lot less sense
@0xabad1dea I'm with you!
The literal phrase means that a poor craftsperson blames their tools *for the craftperson's poor results.* The saying doesn't mean don't complain about tools, it means a craftsperson is accountable for the outcome and therefore takes responsibility for choosing and/or replacing their tools and using them well.
@0xabad1dea I understand that saying as finding excuse for shody work. A master will probably not make shody work so they have no reason to blame their well maintened tools
@0xabad1dea Yeah, whenever I hear someone say that, I always add: it's a poor worksman who blames his tools, because a good worksman knows how to choose his tools. So if he blames his tools, he blames himself.
But if the tools are forced upon you, well, then you're blaming your manager. Rightfully so.
Oct 22, 2026, 3:11 PM@0xabad1dea A possible response to said manager if you have enough clout to get away with it is "but these aren't my tools, they're your tools".
@0xabad1dea I always saw it as "The poor workman will deliver poor work and blame it on the tools, a good workman will just get better tools"
Oct 22, 2026, 3:15 PM@0xabad1dea Worse: managers and fellow workers - especially in #Capitalism systems where there's no such thing as 'too much' - are empowered to know which tools are faulty, and which are not, and keep you uninformed so they can have a more direct path to usurping your value, for their own.
#AbuseOfPower at scale
Oct 22, 2026, 3:25 PM@0xabad1dea a lesson I learned a while ago is that if you are rummaging in the tool chest for "the good screwdriver" then you should probably buy another quality one and throw out all the bad ones.
Oct 22, 2026, 3:33 PM@0xabad1dea well, if they weren't poor, they could buy better tools instead of complaining, so it's kinda makes sense :blobcat_googly_hammed:
When you reach the point that your tools restrict you more than your (lack of) skill, it’s time to get better tools. Knowing which situation you’re in is why we need teachers/mentors to guide us.
@0xabad1dea Agreed. Taking into account some people are tools, this makes even more sense.
@0xabad1dea
Louder, for the people in the back.
@0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange I'm a poor worksman who blames their tools cause I'm too poor to afford better :blobcatmeltcry: /silly
@0xabad1dea I think this might be more true today than long time ago. And likely for the same reason also: For the master would have seen the tools are not good and sharpened them first. There might be more depth to this phrase than is immediately apparent. 🤔
@0xabad1dea This. 💯
@0xabad1dea I think you're misunderstanding what the word blame means. and your example, the master Craftsman isn't blaming anything. they are correcting a problem. The poor craftsman doesn't correct the problem, they blame it afterwards.
@0xabad1dea A related fallacy is that cheap, poorly made tools are fine for novices, and that only experienced pros need the good stuff.
If I don't have experience with some task, and have no idea what I'm doing, I need all the help I can get. The last thing I need is introducing an "are my tools misbehaving?" variable. A pro would at least have a chance of knowing how to compensate.
@0xabad1dea The best tools make learning the best technique easy; they are transparent to the practitioner's skill. Bad tools are an opaque filter to the practitioner's skill. They make it hard for a novice to learn good technique, and leave inexperienced practitioners blaming themselves for the tool's poor results.
@0xabad1dea OTOH, a complete tool always blames his workmen...
I have worked hard to make sure that anyone learning to play guitar gets to learn on a good guitar. There is nothing more detrimental and discouraging than trying to learn to play guitar on a piece of garbage.
@0xabad1dea I can see from reading the comments that lots of people spend a lot of time thinking about this stuff, which is good because it's important.
My own two cents is that it's about being the type of person that makes excuses vs the type of person that gets shit done.
Cause whatever it is that's limiting you, you get to choose between treating it as a problem to solve or as an excuse to under-deliver time and time again.
Oct 22, 2026, 4:51 PM@0xabad1dea I've internalized the not blaming your tools idea within my academic work. I don't blame the tools (students). I am not responsible for how they are when they enter my program, I am responsible for them when they exit.
Oct 22, 2026, 4:59 PM@0xabad1dea today at work I was almost at the point of yelling, because claude drove me nuts... Should refuse to use that and yell at my boss if he whines about me not using it enough... I mean... At this point I don't care if I loose my job for being problematic or because AI is just eliminating it... With one of those I at least keep my sanity (whats left of it)
Our tools are chosen primarily on the basis of them having a "management dashboard".
@0xabad1dea It is a poor workman who blames his tools because the master doesn't have any crappy tools left.
Harbor Freight has entered the chat…
@0xabad1dea It's an incomplete version of the quote like "The customer is always right."
The customer is always right....in matters of taste. So if the customer wants my machines in bright neon pink, I better go down to the paint shop and get painting, even if I think that's a stupid color for this.
The poor worksman blames his tools....for doing shit work. You chose the tools sir, maybe you need to chose betters tools, or resolve some technical debt, before you start working and produce yet another failure.
@0xabad1dea JFYI: “to blame” and “to complain” are not synonyms. They have different meaning. As a result, they are not interchangeable.
@0xabad1dea critically, it's a poor workman who blames his tools *and still keeps using them despite adequate opportunity to acquire better tools*
@0xabad1dea That saying isn't about tools though, is it? It's about refusing to be accountable.
@0xabad1dea@infosec.exchange i'd rather say "a master can work with the worst tool but knows a bad tool is worse for your work than not being as good yourself" but that might just be me being silly ig ?
Oct 22, 2026, 6:09 PM@0xabad1dea You still didn't get the extra RAM for the remote desktop system then?
If I recall correctly, that was you/your company... Could be wrong though!
@0xabad1dea /j Software development and AI be like:
@0xabad1dea I once tried learning to play the saxophone, on a malfunctioning saxophone. It was frustrating flailing about experience, and I only succeeded after it got repaired.
@0xabad1dea IMO the saying makes sense under the assumption the worksman's tools are actually fine (implying the worksman doesn't know how to use them/how to do the job properly and is redirecting blame)
But plenty on this thread including yourself have already mentioned how this statement immediately falls apart when that assumption is false 🤣
Like when a harbor freight C clip tool I had bent before it released the clip... 🤣🤣🤣
@0xabad1dea in my case, my manager does know how to do my job, but only with the lousy tools he used to do it with, so that's what I'm being trained on and it's my fault if I do it wrong.
Oct 22, 2026, 7:24 PM@0xabad1dea put your sub-par tools in the hands of a master and see how much better they can use those sub-par tools, and thus blame both yourself \*and* the tools :cat_giggle: /genuine
@0xabad1dea Is this about the PHP? ;-) Anyways, I remember when a "head of engineering" pushed DynamoDB no matter what. It ended costing the company millions on retarded development (in all meanings of that word) and, later, on exploding usage fees. And, then, never-ending migration.
Oct 22, 2026, 7:40 PM@0xabad1dea You never want to be a master.. Beginners mind yall
@0xabad1dea Reminds me of the adage that to attract and retain skilled people you need to provide ”sharp tools and interesting problems”.
@0xabad1dea I think the meaning is a good worksman is his own boss and knows what tool is good and bad, doing a bad job and blaming the tools as a way out of accountability, not that tool quality isnt a factor. Of course, everyone has a boss now and that boss has misaligned incentives.
@0xabad1dea 🎣 Quite a catch this time. 😄
@0xabad1dea Good lord, the literalism of some of the replies to this . . . A saying is understood by how it's used, not by quibbling about the vocabulary. (And I'm saying this as a quibbler.)
You're absolutely right—the saying, as generally understood by those using it, is simply wrong.
@0xabad1dea I think you will find that the saying comes from a period when an apprentice had to make his own set of tools as part of his training.
A master craftsman does not make his finest crafts by haphazardly bashing them together with twigs.
He uses a hammer.
I've used a great many programming languages, IDEs, and other programming tools in my 30 years, and I definitely have opinions and preferences about which of them are best and why.
@0xabad1dea I've had a lot of music teachers tell me "well, that might be ok today, but you should get a better guitar when you can"
I've never yet had one tell me "that's too much guitar for you"
@0xabad1dea Most of the times that I've heard that lately, the statement is coming from someone who sold the crappy tools.
@0xabad1dea, yes, anyone buying crappy tools for big money falls under: 'a fool and his/her money are easily separated.'
@0xabad1dea Ironically i have heard that quote in the AI debate as well.
Oct 22, 2026, 9:22 PM@0xabad1dea
I can't tell you how often I tell patrons, "Yeah, OhioLINK is kinda fucked."