Too easy

When people sneer at a technology for being too easy to use, it's worth trying out.

If the only criticism is that something is too easy or "OK for beginners" then maybe it's a threat to people who invested a lot of work learning to do things the old way.

The problem with the "OK for beginners" put-down is that everyone is a beginner sometimes. Professionals are often beginners because they're routinely trying out new things. And being easier for beginners doesn't exclude the possibility of being easier for professionals too.

Sometimes we assume that harder must be better. I know I do. For example, when I first used Windows, it was so much easier than Unix that I assumed Unix must be better for reasons I couldn't articulate. I had invested so much work learning to use the Unix command line, it must have been worth it. (There are indeed advantages to doing some things from the command line, but not the work I was doing at the time.)

There often are advantages to doing things the hard way, but something isn't necessary better because it's hard. The easiest tool to pick up may not be best tool for long-term use, but then again it might be.

Most of the time you want to add the easy tool to your toolbox, not take the old one out. Just because you can use specialized professional tools doesn't mean that you always have to.

Related post: Don't be a technical masochist