This is a rather lazy argument I often see levied. It provides no real insight, and defends against everything equally. "Gotos are just a tool; On Error Resume Next is just a tool; null pointers are just a tool; etc."
That said, I think Joe's original article against OO was ill-informed (which is surprising, given his status), and this article rightly points out that Joe's arguments are bogus.
I don't think anyone disagrees that religious battles are stupid. But to sweep all discussion about tools under the "hey man, different tools for different jobs" just avoids critical thinking. If you don't want to participate in these discussions, don't. It's like a discussion on Windows Phone 7 UI, and someone comes along and says "lol, doesn't matter, Windows Phone 7 will never take off".
Just because it's one tool of many does not mean it's good. The whole tool thing is a bit of a non sequitur. After all Basic and Intercal are also just "a tool among others in the toolbox". This doesn't mean they are good tools!
I really do not understand why this tool argument comes up. Do you never evaluate the quality of your tools? I was planning to come up with a good analogy to some carpenter's tool that is objectively bad and not used any more, but then it turns out I know effectively nothing about carpentry.
