You know, the more I think about how obsessed programmers are with their tools, the weirder it gets.

This is not how tools are supposed to work, folks. Tools are the things you use to do exciting things, not the thing you get excited about.

though I guess I'm being overly charitable by describing programmers as "excited" about their tools. It's really more like tool supremacy - "my tool is the best and all other tools suck!". type thing

Oh huh I just put this together with the fact that I used to be super interested in learning new programming languages and have always felt vaguely bad about the fact that I no longer am.

What if that lack of interest is actually a good thing?

Of course, sometimes it's appropriate to be excited about a tool, but I think most of the time that's because the tool is the thing you are working on. I am (sometimes) excited about Hypothesis, but that's when I'm working on it, not when I'm using it.

It's also very reasonable to be excited about a tool when you're first learning it and the possibilities that it opens up.

If you want to be excited about a tool in other contexts then... well I guess I'm not going to stop you? But I still think it's weird.