adam ragusea, a popular (and blessed: please speak no ill of him to me unless you’ve found something damning) home chef on youtube, has said: “people reach for the tool that feels good in their hand, not necessarily the tool that is the best one for the job”. what languages or tools are the ones that feel so good to use that you can’t help reaching for them, and why?

Vue.js is the tool/language that makes me "feel good to use" the more. I guess because it particularly matches well my mental model for UI dev. I feel good in working with reactive system with declarative UI definition. And the new Composition API add a way to manage, hm, composition that feels right to me. Also the clear simple yet string design with perfect documentation make it a a pleasure to work with and learn. And consequently I use it even when it is not necessary or it might be a bit overkill.

I fell in love with the Kakoune editor for similar reasons. The visual feedback and improved-relative-to-Vim keybindings made it immediately feel right to me well before I was any good at actually using it (arguably I'm still not, but I wasn't a real Vim wizard, so, eh). I think @ogadaki nailed it w.r.t. matching our mental model. There are also a lot of path-dependent emotional factors.

Python. Python. Python!

@Andrew F how did you get into kakoune? i really like the model and it looks really interesting but i find the documentation kind of impenetrable

@Garth Goldwater I don't remember precisely, but it was either this blog post or a very similar one that kind of combined a tutorial and sales pitch. Plus I was already used to Vim. https://cosine.blue/2019-09-06-kakoune.html

Ruby. 😄

Java. But don't judge me. i'm trying to wean myself off. 🙂