I will take credit for the dislike of the term “right tool for the right job”, however dislike of the term is where it ends. Mark is correct in his explanation of using the right horse for the course – the bitter taste from the phrase simply comes from too many people using it too many times as an excuse.

There are many times in my career I have heard people say “its the right tool for the job” simply because:

1. They were too lazy to research other tools.

2. They were too new/ignorant to understand the full use case for the tool/code/app in question.

3. It was a cool technology and they just wanted to use it.

Because of the above reasons this term has quickly become cliche and is often offered up as an excuse by those that fall into one of the above categories.

Simply put, the right tool for the right job is a good credo and is well worth following. But with all things, when it becomes a mainstream term it often becomes diluted and loses much of its core meaning.