Process
Apr 14, 2026
5 min read
The case for boring tools
Every hour spent relearning a rewritten tool is an hour the work didn't get. My stack is old, stable, and none of my clients can tell.
My editor is a decade old. My site generator predates most of the frameworks that were supposed to replace it. The newest thing in my toolchain is the browser — and I'd change that if I could.
Novelty is a cost center
Tools promise leverage but bill you in attention. Every migration, every config rewrite, every "we've rethought everything in v3" is time subtracted from the actual work — and the work is the only thing the client ever sees. Nobody has once asked what I built their site with. They ask why it's fast.
Pick tools like furniture
I choose tools the way Forma's customers choose chairs: expecting to keep them a decade. That rules out most of what's exciting, which is exactly the point. The boring tool you know deeply beats the brilliant tool you know from the launch video.
Spend your novelty budget on the work. The work is allowed to be surprising. The toolchain isn't.