I think he's just saying that if you let your cash [commitments] get out in front of your business [income], you set yourself up for catastrophic failure. If you rented an office or bought a company car -- or took out a loan -- before you had good income, you made a risky move with consequences.
If you have a 9-to-5 and build up clients on the side to the point that you can eventually replace the regular salary, you win. You let the cash pull you into the business, not the business pull out all of your cash.
Honestly, I've had to sluff off clients on the side because I'd rather keep the "real" job for now. But if I was happy with $25-30k a year to start, I could've already made the move. Be patient, bide your time, don't let the cash get in front of your business, and wait until your business selects you. That's good advice.
Fair, though the question is less, "Do we need good tools?" than "What makes a great tool?" VIm and Emacs both make great tools.
But nobody comes to VIm knowing how to use it intuitively. Its features make the investment worthwhile. Same with Sublime Text 2. There are features that instantly save time (the tiny thumbnail of your entire file makes traversal a breeze for me) and others than take a while to get used to (ctrl-P).
The question shouldn't be, "Should I waste time looking at ANY tools?" especially in the ironic context of, "I've used two decades of my life learning VIm and now it ROCKS." It's, "What does this tool have that makes it worth using?" That answer for me so far is speed, flexibility, and features, like the two above. I'd hoped to see more on those topics here.
When I want to use VIm, I do. When I want to use JEdit, I do. As the previous fellow replying says, you don't simply use hammers. Figure out where this tool -- which is a very good one -- fits. Its best feature might be its untimed trial period. Give it a shot.
Wow, great whitespace, comments written for humans to read & not simply check off (eg, no "FluidDisplayASCII fluidly displays ASCII" laziness), and TODO markers. Restores a little faith in the world. ;^)
