Should I convince a recently recruited colleague to use the technical tools everyone else use?

Question

I've recruited a junior profile, recently.

So far, so good, tenacious, learning and willing to stick the hours to do so.

However, one thing is a bit irritating to me and the other members of my team : He doesn't want to use the tools that all of us, use and that have been defined by the sysadmin.

All of our workstation are in Linux and we all use zsh. However, he is very insistent on using some new bash, saying he feels more comfortable with it. The issue is that when we have code reviews, the tools he is using are not configured properly and we waste precious time, retrieving info we should have at hand.

And there are a few other things that he is doing his way, instead of doing the team's way like using DuckDuckGo instead of using Google, to search for technical knowledge.

The issue is that by using these tools, we are often wasting time when retrieving info the name of the branch we are using in term of development, info that are available on my zsh and the zsh of my other team members.

The other issue is that he is not proficient with the tools he is using.

As my team is new and our company small, there is no real procedure on which tools everyone should use. Everyone use the tools he wants.

My questions are a bit sequential:

• Should I ask my junior profile, to abide with our way of working? I'm not really fond of imposing things but in the same time, this is work where we should have the same environment for everyone to gain efficiency, instead of originality. It is also a way to say that you are part of the team, not some loose spirit who works his own way.

• In a bigger company, if someone wants to use a tool, there would be proposals for new tools and discussion to implement it. As a smaller company, we have no procedures, everyone wants to use the tools he wants to use.

  Should I define some basic procedure with our sysadmin and ask my colleagues to submit him tools ideas and let the sysadmin, do some optimisation before making it available to our colleagues?

Thanks

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Update

Many thanks for your feedback.

After reading all your answers and comments, Gnasher, Fattie, Brandin, Joe , Simon and Emil, I think that what we , as a team, need to have a common work framework with common tools , when working together in particular context.

When we are doing peer code reviewing for example, we need to have the same windows, the same shell. It makes the collaborative work easier.

However, when you are on your own, you are free to use whatever tools you want to use.

Answer 1

What you are really discussing is not what shell and search engine should be used (I personally use Bing because I don't trust Google one bit), what you are discussing is who has the power. You want him to do the work the way you want him to do it. Tell you what, if you joined my team you could say goodbye to zsh - oh no, you wouldn't, because I don't try to force my preferences on others.

Joining a team and then being told that you are not allowed to work the way you like it, just because of someone else's different preferences (because frankly the reasons you gave are very unconvincing) will not help with the person's job satisfaction and will just make them want to leave.

Answer 2

Yes, but only where it matters. What search engine someone uses makes no difference to the finished product. Neither does the text editor they prefer.

If it causes compatibility issues where one person's code won't work (compile/run/whatever) on another person's system, then that matters.

In bigger companies, there will be an approved tool set, with a process for evaluating new tools when people ask for them.

Answer 3

You've stated this new developer isn't proficient with his tools. So he has no case.

Your question is broadly phrased as "Should I let a new developer use his tools over the team's standardized tools" but really you are asking, "should I let a noob developer that doesn't know how to do stuff, shoot himself in the foot and waste our time, or should I enforce team standards and make him more productive at the same time?"

Easy answer to that. The answer is "make him more productive and show him at the same time why companies have standardization". You're the experienced developer. He is a noob. Teach him. Don't let him "unteach" you.

Answer 4

If a company states which tools must be used,

(yes, even something seemingly as trivial as "their search engine" or "their keyboard")

that's what they use.

There's nothing much else to be said.

{Regarding the off-topic discussion of whether it's petty/sensible to require certain tools: (i) you can trivially see examples where it would be critical that everyone uses those same tools and (ii) interestingly, a really important part of software is you have to have absolute faith in the upwards pipe - on principal. If your architect tells you to do some thing a certain way there's likely a specific reason even if she didn't bother explaining it. All software engineers of basic competence understand this is a fundamental aspect of doin' software.}