Use the Saw, Fear the Saw

When I was four years old, I was playing with a stick in the back yard and my dad accidentally got parts of his four fingers cut off by his radial arm saw. It did not slow him down too much, but I was always afraid of that saw.

This short little article manages to summarize a long-standing feeling I've had about safety and societal progress. We protect people by making things safer, but in doing so, we oftentimes incrementally lose a combination of functionality, ability, agency, experience, and wisdom.

This reminds me o sharp knifes argument. In programming you may want to provide tools that can shoot you in the foot, if the alternative is not as powerful. here is a conversation with DHH about it [0]. For instance, you may consider dynamic languages if the alternative is too much type gymnastics.

The first time I've seen the argument was in the prag-prog magazine that sadly is not active anymore.

[0] VIDEO: https://youtube.com/watch?v=vagyIcmIGOQ&t=8396

Or, just don't use a table saw. Get a tracksaw. It simply isn't true that a table saw is "required" for woodworking. Yes, there are cuts which take more time and/or are more difficult with a tracksaw, and in general you need to think more. But you don't waste a ton of space centrally in your workshop, and you get to keep your fingers, as it's a much safer tool.

The mythology is strong: I am especially amused by youtube woodworkers who, when cutting sheet goods, make "initial" cuts with a tracksaw, because it's so much safer and more practical, and then do "final", "precise" cuts on their table saw. I cut my sheet goods once, with a tracksaw (parallel guides FTW), and they are perfect.

Ironically, I don't think glibly remarking that you "still have all your limbs" and some handmade furniture at the end properly demonstrates someone "fear[ing] the saw," and it demonstrates some of the hubris we're seeing in current tech culture.

One of my high school teachers impressed the same caution upon my cohort but was missing the end of a finger.

This is a shorter version of Neal Stephenson's metaphor of Unix as a Hole Hawg drill from "In the Beginning was the Command Line".

I don't like the 'fear' part. You should respect your tools, not fear them. Fear makes you do stupid things, respect stops you from doing stupid things.

I grew up around woodworking and then went off to the soft world of computers.

I learned to cut 2x4s floating them in on hand with a circular saw in the other, cutting so the longer one side remained in hand without the concern of binding.

It is best to learn from old men with all their fingers or young ones with digits numbering less.

Still given the option, I would prefer the tool that gets the job done that is safer and reduces error over one that is just sharp edges. For example, TypeScript vs JavaScript.

My best power tool tip, learned years ago, is "go pee first" meaning that you'll be less careful if you're trying to hurry through the cut because you need to go to the bathroom.