Why Your Team Needs a Toolsmith

Ever since I started programming professionally in the early 90s, I always had rules to follow. "Use these switches to compile". "Name your output in a certain format" (of course back then it would be an arcane mix of letters and numbers because it was limited to 8.3 format. Remember those?).

As my career progresses, I was the one making the rules. Proper folder structures. How to document testing. Finding new tools to make life easier for everyone (almost two decades later, it hasn't! More on this as the blog develops.)

I've now realized this role, is fullfilled by a Toolsmith. Like in the real factories with real machinery, the toolsmith would use all his engineering creativity to keep it running. Sometimes it means ordering new machines. Sometimes it means hooking two things that were not meant to be together.

But the toolsmith is sometimes so invisible, always taken for granted. If things are working well, the toolsmith looks idle. If things are breaking apart, the toolsmith gets the blame.

That's why this blog is born. I want to highlight the art of software toolsmithing. I want development managers and programmers to know that when things are working well, the toolsmith is most probably designing new enhancements to make life even easier for them. And when things are breaking apart, it is most probably due to underinvestment in the development infrastructure.

I will be touching a lot on the issue of building software, as the role of Buildmaster. But there is also what they formally call Software Configuration Management. I don't really like the term myself, programmers, team leaders and managers don't click with it. I would call it Software Release Management instead. That's because everybody understand that releasing software is the most important thing a team will do. It is the whole point of their existence.

I will also touch on how to nurture a development environment that both programmers and managers like. Easier than it sounds, and it's more than dual screens and free coffee (although that helps a lot...).

I guess that's enough for a first post. I look forward into developing this blog. Any comments and suggestions always welcome.