After reading an article on Hacker News I found myself once again perplexed by self-proclaimed "programmers" who insist upon a minimal toolset to accomplish their work.
Jeremy Morgan, the guy who wrote the original article about the tools he uses, is clearly a Windows programmer. His tools indicate not only that he runs Windows, but that he writes code that is intended to be deployed on Windows. For Windows developers, some tools are necessary for the trade. Specifically, a compiler that will produce a Windows binary application is a tool that must be in the box to accomplish your job. But beyond what's required for producing working code/applications for different platforms, there seems to be a trend among vocal "coders" to use the least invasive tools for the job.
