Internal Tools and Prototypes

I built them, mostly hands-on, and decided which ones were worth hardening and which were worth abandoning.

The fastest way to learn what a new capability is good for is to build with it and watch where it breaks. Over three years this meant a steady run of prototypes and small internal tools, some of which found real use and some of which taught me something and then got switched off.

That ratio is the point rather than a caveat. Evaluating the tooling landscape from the outside produces opinions; building with it produces knowledge about where the seams are, which is what you need before you put anything in front of a client deadline.