note··No. 002

Small tools, sharpened

on the value of narrow scope

The best tools I use do one thing and refuse to do two. A good pair of scissors does not also want to be a knife. A good note does not also want to be an essay.

I spent a week this month trying to decide how to handle theme switching on this site. Every solution that reached for a library added three things I did not need alongside the one I did. The right answer was smaller: a single CSS custom property, a single data-theme attribute, a single line of script. Done before I finished the coffee.

Scope is not a constraint. It is a practice.