Elaborate hardware is not an acceptable substitute for the properly selected knot correctly tied. Good technique is:

Light weight (0 oz.)
Low cost ( $ 0)
Unbreakable, and
Misplaced only at low temperatures.

If I were teaching a one hour knot tying class this is the order I would teach them:

Clove hitch
Taut-line
Figure 8 knot
Lanyard Hitch
Mooring Hitch
Sheet bend
Prusik
Water Knot
Bowline
Square knot
Truckers’s hitch
Alpine Butterfly
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"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not."
Yogi Berra