I'm not entirely clear what the argument being made is. Simple tools are simple, sure.

But there is an awful lot of complexity in otherwise simple things. Just look at hand tools and see the difference between a power drill and a power driver. And realize that asking which one is simpler is a bit of a red herring. Even better, try and guess which one was created first.

I think, often times, people mistake the results of something from the tools that went into it. Such that it can be tempting to think that simple looking creations were made with simple tools. As often, the opposite is the case. It takes complicated tools to build something that looks simple.

Maybe the argument was that you put more effort and work into what you are building than you do that which you use to build it? I think that is largely fair.

That is actually somewhat in focus when discussing a pen versus the "penzilla." For one, building a pen is a surprisingly difficult thing to do. Especially at scale. For two, people rarely want to have a pen for the sake of owning a pen. Instead, you want to write something.

  > something that looks simple.

There's a lot of old sayings that capture this sentiment. "Simplicity is complexity resolved" (Brancusi), "Good design is invisible) (???), "The best craftsman leaves no trace." (Chinese Proverb??).

My favorite is "Sprezzatura"[0]. The act of making something look simple. IME, the mark of a true expert is they make their work look trivial. As if anyone could do it. It's bittersweet that this is the reality, because we seem to have fooled ourselves into thinking things are as simple as it looks ("pun" intended). It's a dangerous trap. Over estimating difficulty will prevent us from trying, but underestimating will make us foolishly spin our wheels. But I think we've built a system where we just normalize wheel spinning. It's true, most wheels are made for spinning. But if they're freely spinning in the air then your car is going nowhere.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprezzatura

Here's semi related talk about simple/complex and easy/hard [1].

[1] "Simple Made Easy" - Rich Hickey (2011) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23905051

I think this is not the point of the argument. Power driver solves a problem, but not everyone has that problem. Some jobs just need a drill.

The article argues that while React solves a problem, not everyone actually has a problem that requires the complexity of React (i.e. "Build pyramids if you must").

> Just look at hand tools and see the difference between a power drill and a power driver. And realize that asking which one is simpler is a bit of a red herring. Even better, try and guess which one was created first.

I would assume the power drill was created first if you include human powered drills, screws came much later than pretty much every other kind of simple machine, and until machine tools were invented, screws as fasteners didn’t really exist outside of specialized applications. They were used for presses and applying force.

John Henry was competing against a steam powered rock drill in the folk tale about him.

If you define power tools as tools driven by electric motors, I would still guess that the drill came before the driver, as rivets seem to be more popular in the steam engine to electric transition period than bolts or screws were.

Slightly confusing things is the fact that a modern drill is almost always a driver too, unless it’s a specific kind of drill like a hammer drill or core drill. Confusing things even more, there are drill bits that are meant to be used with an impact driver, a tool that is used to tighten or loosen fasteners.

As for which is simpler, drill vs (impact) driver, it’s hard to say. A drill has a clutch, and an impact driver has a spring mechanism that applies rotational force when the motor is at its limit. I’d say both are fairly complex, the impact driver is probably a bit more complex than a drill.

I’m curious about the development and history of power tools but it can be difficult to find information about it.

The argument is that certain tools introduce complexity into a project by the mere act of using them. A power drill has many more knobs and features that the user must be aware of than, say, a screwdriver. Sometimes those features are required, but often developers will gravitate towards such tools even when they're not.

In software development this applies not just to external tools, but to abstractions in general. We might be tempted to create or depend on an abstraction that solves many problems in a generic way, when in reality this could be avoided. The appeal is to reject this temptation whenever possible.

Simplicity is an amorphous quality without a clear path towards it. It's often debatable whether a system is simple or complex, given that most software is built on extremely complex machinery we take for granted. But the least we can do is to be mindful of practices that lead to a net increase of complexity, use critical thinking instead of blindly following trends, and, sometimes, take the more difficult road for the sake of preserving simplicity.

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