So, here is the thought stuck in my head.

In software we are sold tools as solutions to our problems, but the truth is that problems are never ending.

What good tools do is offer us the chance to "trade up" our problems for *better*, more productive problems.

What I've learned these years is that anyone offering you freedom from pain with a tool (of any sort, not just software) is selling you snake oil.

Pain and problems are unavoidable. The question is where you experience it.

So software vendors will talk to you about how they are solving these problems but can be very cagey about the problems that you are trading your old problems for...

and it's easy to hear the siren's called of alleviated pain and not see the new pain you are acquiring...

something I am trying out in the work I am doing building tools at work is trying to figure out what pains I am planning to give the user.

It's weird!

But what I am trying to do is take one problem and give them better problems to solve.