Buried in a talk on AI from an artist who is doing cutting-edge video work was the following nugget that entirely sums up the zeitgeist: “The tools are changing so fast that artists can’t keep up with them, let alone master them, before everyone is on to the next.” And while you might think that this concern is only relevant to those who have to stay on the crest of the hype wave, the deeper question resounds with every hacker.
When was the last time you changed PCB layout software or refreshed your operating system? What other tools do you use in your work or your extra-curricular projects, and how long have you been using them? Are you still designing your analog front-ends with LM358s, or have you looked around to see that technology has moved on since the 1970s? “OMG, you’re still using ST32F103s?”
It’s not a simple question, and there are no good answers. Proficiency with a tool, like for instance the audio editor with which I crank out the podcast every week, only comes through practice. And practice simply takes time and effort. When you put your time in on a tool, it really is an investment in that it helps you get better. But what about that newer, better tool out there?
Some of the reluctance to update is certainly sunk-cost fallacy, after all you put so much sweat and tears into the current tool, but there is also a real cost to overcome to learn the new hotness, and that’s no fallacy. If you’re always trying to learn a new way of doing something, you’re never going to get good at doing something, and that’s the lament of our artist friend. Honing your craft requires focus. You won’t know the odd feature set of that next microcontroller as well as you do the old faithful – without sitting down and reading the datasheet and doing a couple finger-stretching projects first.
Striking the optimal balance here is hard. On a per-project basis, staying with your good old tool or swapping to the new hotness is a binary choice, but across your projects, you can do some of each. Maybe it makes sense to budget some of your hacking time into learning new tools? How about ten percent? What do you think?
I still use a dubiously-obtained Adobe Photoshop from 2003 for all my graphic work. I know it very well and it’s totally free to use forever. It can’t save to whatever the latest format hotness is, but it can work in jpgs, pngs, and even animated gifs, and that’s good enough for me. All you suckers paying a subscription to Adobe need to ask yourself — do you really need AI background replacement?
Yes I do. I actually have a job where I use that stuff. And I regularly need like five or six other things from the suite.
At least I can cancel my Autodesk subscription and use Blender, which has finally caught up enough to be a viable (almost) full replacement. I know that one day Autodesk and Adobe will fuse into one big obvious monopoly cartel and nobody will do anything, but that day is not today
Surely 95% of what you use Photoshop to do can be done by a version from 2003, but I get it, if you have a professional need, pay for subscription. I tried to use the Gimp for a month when I was in Costa Rica with a work laptop I couldn’t get 2003 Photoshop to install on, and it was most unpleasant. But I’m a software developer and only need Photoshop for quick and dirty buttons or whatever — when I’m not doing the usual cropping or color balancing on personal photographs.
Oddly enough I did time in the US for drug trafficking and as far as my valuable time, what makes it valuable is that I can do what I want with it. Amazing how that works. Oddly enough I am often times a proponent of buying things that are off the shelf solutions when they make sense. We all have our own decisions to make what it makes sense to farm out and what to do yourself.
Also consider cars, I drive cars, trucks, construction equipment and motorcycles. If felt a repair was out of my experience beyond my abilities to safely carry out, do you think I would want me driving around in it? I am sure most people feel the same way. I won’t disagree with you that many people are not too concerned about the rest of the world, but in this case, their ass is on the line too.
You make an excellent point about the value of personal time, something I must price extremely cheaply in my brain, because I always want to do EVERYTHING, even if I don’t know how to do it. I’ll watch a YouTube video and then just do it. Usually this works out okay for me, but wouldn’t my time be better spent doing something I am extremely good at instead of things that are going to take me twice as long. But then I call a plumber to install a sensor on water heater at a rental property and he quotes a figure of $1200. So I buy the part and spend 20 minutes doing it myself — the money I just saved is much more than I could earn doing what I do professionally.
Oddly enough, I use GIMP for all my photo manipulation. I’ve been using it since about 1996.
We have a licensed copy of Photoshop at work. My attempts to use it were most unpleasant. Nothing is where I expect it. The names of the menu entries are all funky. Nothing matches what I expect.
It is in very large part just what you are used to – but that is a VERY large part of it.
Can’t agree more. I still use an older version of photoshop. Learned it well, I always get the job done efficiently. Blocked it from calling home and never had any issues. Never had to waste time when opening the app that it would block it’s use until I upgraded which would interrupt my workflow. Would never upgrade to a subscription model. Getting milked for using an app is pure profiteering without any real benifits. Keeping my computer apps isolated from calling home has kept my workflow fluid. Obviously not all apps can be blocked if specific internet use is required or a major fix is necessary for repairing annoying bugs. Online file conversion or separate apps resolve compatibility issues when working with newer photoshop formats. Being technically savvy helps but colleagues who aren’t succumb to purchasing the subscription model. Unfortunately.
I think I look at it from the other direction. There are solved problems and unsolved problems. Solved problems, for me, are the CAD software I use and the Circuit design/layout software. I’d still be on Eagle if it weren’t for that damn company.
And then there are unsolved problems, like the actual project I’m working on and how to get this part to interact with that part in just the way I want.
On the other hand, I completely abandoned hand written code once I tried AI. Now I just ask the Great Intelligence to write the great majority of my code for me and then the only problem to solve is tweaking it to be exactly what I want.
So no. and yes. If the tool is compelling enough it’ll get into the mix.
What kind of code do you write? Do you have a github repo or something we can see the code AI generated? I’m curious because the time I tried to use it to write embedded systems code it wasn’t so helpful (of course I was new to using it too).
Almost all the code I need is simple Arduino stuff. The last one was an ESPNow implementation and a Python-based UI to match. Both of which, aside from simple changes, it nailed easily.
Claude.ai works well for me.
I haven’t written real code since SQL was in its infancy :-)
On a smaller level, a retired co-worker found some 8mm home movies and wanted my help in putting them on DVDs for Christmas gifts. I used the Windows movie maker from Windows 7 and 8 on 2 different PCs to do the deed. I found the video stabilizer from 8 works a lot like it used to on YouTube before they removed it. Whatever codec is needed is present on Windows 7 so I used it to do the burning. I know there are way better ways, but I’m working with what I’ve got and my co-worker was able to hand them out as priceless gifts to his family.
Tools change. Good design sense accumulates.
in 2007 i bought a license of zbrush v3.1 for $489
For 15 years Pixologic gave me free updates.
Maxon gave me one final update, zbrush 2022.0.8 after they purchased it from pixologic.
The upgrade to Zbrush 2023, the last perpetual license offered, was priced at $659
Thats $170 more than I originally paid for an update, not a new license.
Now Zbrush costs $400 a year, Thats ONE year for only $89 less than i paid for my first 15 years
so Ill be using zbrush 2022 forever, or at least until Maxon sells it to someone else and they start offering a reasonably priced upgrade or perpetual license.
I stuck with Rhino 4 from 2007 until 2020 when I scraped part of a stimulus check into a rhino 7 upgrade. Im still learning to use the new bells and whistles that brought me. At $600 to upgrade It will probably be another 3 versions until I upgrade again. Rhino 10? maybe? LOL
Ive still got a set of socket wrenches I bought in high school (1989) to work on my first car.
If a tool still gets the job done why replace it?
Wait until you see how much literally everything else has increased in price since 2007
I prefer to spend my time on the creation side (projects) and invest in learning a new tool/flow only when the existing one no longer works for me. I also ride OS versions a long time… I understand this puts me out of the cutting edge but I am still making cool/useful devices and being very productive. As I’ve gotten older I also understand I don’t have to follow every new thing. I’ve seen a lot of “new” things come and then die.
For example, I can acknowledge how cool Kicad is and understand many of the advantages of using it but my old version of Eagle still suffices and I’m very productive with it which allows me to complete projects faster. Someday I’ll have to move off of it and I will without a second thought (and I bet that Kicad is even better then).
My take is simple. If AI tools of the future are so good, they are so easy at making expertise in a task obsolete, then whats the issue? Current studies strongly indicate new AI fancy tools and applications reduce critical thinking in their users. I think critical thinking is more important than a tool. if you always design with ancient components and for some reason someone said you had to do something else, something tells me you would be able to adapt with a tiny bit of friction and depending on your personality a grumble or two.
Some of the premise of this article is flawed as well. Changing tools regularly can help deepen someones understanding of their subject matter. Seeing the same material from different angles is a brilliant way to reinforce learning and is highly recommended by educators. I haven’t been around as long as some, but most of these tools aren’t all that different. It’s usually a matter of learning which levers to pull to accomplish a task.
I use an image viewer that was last updated 21 years ago. Apart from not understanding webp and non-English character filenames it works perfectly.
Bruce Lee supposedly said something like;
“I would rather face an opponent who practiced 1000 punches once,
than face someone who practiced one punch a thousand times.”
I tell my kids to learn a new thing every morning, and nothing worse will happen to you all day long. That said some of my favorite tools (hand planes and chisels) I got from grandad and he got from his dad. They are more than a hundred years old and still working just fine. They sit on the bench next to a DeWalt cordless drill that I can hardly do without. Use the best tools you can, learn from them every day.
My take is simple. If AI tools of the future are so good, they are so easy at making expertise in a task obsolete, then whats the issue? Current studies strongly indicate new AI fancy tools and applications reduce critical thinking in their users. I think critical thinking is more important than a tool. if you always design with ancient components and for some reason someone said you had to do something else, something tells me you would be able to adapt with a tiny bit of friction and depending on your personality a grumble or two.
Some of the premise of this article is flawed as well. Changing tools regularly can help deepen someones understanding of their subject matter. Seeing the same material from different angles is a brilliant way to reinforce learning and is highly recommended by educators. I haven’t been around as long as some, but most of these tools aren’t all that different. It’s usually a matter of learning which levers to pull to accomplish a task.
I wrestle with this question all the time as a professional educator. Is it better to do ” the thing” the way you can best do it? Or spend time (the most valuable resource) learning some other way. For example there is a task I can do in about 20 seconds about 90, maybe 95% of the time. The remainder of the time it takes like 10 minutes if I mess up the first pass. There is another way to do it that takes like 2 minutes with about a 98% success rate. Which is better? Still don’t know!
Fortunately for the students kind of the whole point of being a learner is you are given the valuable time (plus as student compared to a professional your time is worth way less) to practice and learn new stuff.
For my part when working and not teaching I value my time at $200/hr. Somewhat arbitrary but hellos the mental calculus- if it takes me 10 (or 40hrs) to become proficient or better save it make me the equivalent $. Unless it’s just fun. Then it’s a hobby and is expected to cost me money anyway!
My take is simple. If AI tools of the future are so good, they are so easy at making expertise in a task obsolete, then whats the issue? Current studies strongly indicate new AI fancy tools and applications reduce critical thinking in their users. I think critical thinking is more important than a tool. if you always design with ancient components and for some reason someone said you had to do something else, something tells me you would be able to adapt with a tiny bit of friction and depending on your personality a grumble or two.
Some of the premise of this article is flawed as well. Changing tools regularly can help deepen someones understanding of their subject matter. Seeing the same material from different angles is a brilliant way to reinforce learning and is highly recommended by educators. I haven’t been around as long as some, but most of these tools aren’t all that different. It’s usually a matter of learning which levers to pull to accomplish a task.
My take is simple. If AI tools of the future are so good, they are so easy at making expertise in a task obsolete, then whats the issue? Current studies strongly indicate new AI fancy tools and applications reduce critical thinking in their users. I think critical thinking is more important than a tool. if you always design with ancient components and for some reason someone said you had to do something else, something tells me you would be able to adapt with a tiny bit of friction and depending on your personality a grumble or two.
Some of the premise of this article is flawed as well. Changing tools regularly can help deepen someones understanding of their subject matter. Seeing the same material from different angles is a brilliant way to reinforce learning and is highly recommended by educators. I haven’t been around as long as some, but most of these tools aren’t all that different. It’s usually a matter of learning which levers to pull to accomplish a task.