The Case for Dev Tool Minimalism: Why Fewer Features Win

Every de tool starts simple. Then comes the feature creep. A calendar app that also manages tasks. A note-taking tool that wants to be your second brain. A code editor that ships a built-in terminal, debugger, AI assistant, package manager, and probably a toaster by next quarter. We've normalized bloated tooling. But after shipping three products as a solo de, I've come to believe the opposite: the best de tools do one thing and do it well. The Feature Trap Here's what happens when a tool tries to do everything: Onboarding gets worse.