I remember this argument being used against Postgres and for Oracle, against Linux and for Windows or AS/400, etc. And I think it makes sense for a certain type of organisation that has no ambition or need to build its own technology competence.

But for everyone else I think it's important to find the right balance in the right areas. A car mechanic is never in the business of building tools. But software engineers always are to some degree, because our tools are software as well.

But postgres is a professional tool. I don't argue for "use enterprise bullshit". I steer clear of that garbage anyway. SWEs always forget the moat of people focusing their whole work day on a problem and having wider access to information than you do. SWEs forget that time also costs money and oftentimes it's better and cheaper just to pay someone. How much does it cost to ship an internal agent solution that runs automated E2E tests for example (independent of quality)? And how much does a normal SaaS for that cost? Devs have cost and risk attached to their work that is not properly taken into account most of the times.

There is a size of tooling thats fine. Like a small script or simple automation or cli UI or whatever. But if we're talking more complex, 95% of the times a stupid idea.

PS: of course car mechanics built their tools. I work on my car and had to build tools. A hex nut that didn't fit in the engine bay, so I had to grind it down. Normal. Cut and weld an existing tool to get into a tight spot. Normal. That's the simple CLI tool size of a tool. But no one would think about building a car lift or a welder or something.

> A car mechanic is never in the business of building tools.

Oh, don't say. A welder, an angle grinder and some scrap metal help a lot.

Unless you're a "dealer" car mechanic, where it is not allowed to think at all, only replace parts.

Or more to the point, I get paid to work, not to tinker. I’ve considered doing it on my own time, sure, but not exactly hurting for hobbies right now.

Who has time to mess around with all that, when my employer will just pay for a ready-made solution that works well enough?

Huh, I thought Claude Code was a tool for tinkerers - it even says so on the landing page. Aren't there dedicated enterprise-grade solutions?

>Because we want to work and not tinker?

It feels to me like every article on HN and half the comments are people tinkering with LLMs.

You're on hacker news, where people (used to?) like hacking on things. I like tinkering with stuff. I'd take a half working open source project over a enshittified commercial offering any day.

But hacking and tinkering is a hobby. I also hack and tinker, but that's not work. Sometimes it makes sense. But the mindset is often times "I can build this" and "everything commercial sucks".

> take a half working open source project

See, how is that appropriate in any way in a work environment?