A good toolchain is important for any development project. It makes the lives of developers easier by abstracting away or automating repetitive tasks. You should always spend some time at the outset of a project making sure you're using all of the best tools available. On an open source project this is 10 times more important. Instead of building a toolchain that will be used by your company or small team, you're building a toolchain that will potentially be used by dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of other developers.