Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Many professions enjoy employer paid continuing education. Lawyers who work for a firm? Maybe. If they work for themselves, they're stuck paying the bills; continuing education is required in many fields, and yet it's not always reimbursed. >Staying up every night committing to Github in hopes of landing a job is a terrible terrible thing. That's never the "right" thing to do. The right thing to do is to commit to G…
> Or Android app programming, even; most Java developers would still take months to get up to speed on Android, if they ever managed adapt to the Android way of thinking at all. So you doubt they would be able to adapt to an environment that uses the exact same language they've been using for 10 years, simply because they don't know the API? Do you think that someone who is smart enough to do Java development for 10…
Not exactly. Probably 95% of "Java Developers" have never touched a GUI, or an event based OS, or graphics code, or an end-user app, for that matter. They'd have plenty of ways to fail besides not knowing how to read a manual.
>Do you think that someone who is smart enough to do Java development for 10 years isn't smart enough to pick up a new Java-based environment in days/weeks?
Weeks, maybe. Days: It depends on what you mean. Start tweaking Java code in an existing app? Sure, why not. Architect a non-trivial app from scratch? Extremely unlikely. Again, talking statistically.
95% of Java developers are NOT as sophisticated as probably half of C++ developers. There's a higher minimum threshold of skill to work on the problems that C++ developers work on than the ones that MOST Java developers work on.
You can be a 100% competent Java developer, and yet not have the right skills to do most of what I do on a regular basis.
And this isn't about YOU; I'm only talking statistically. Most Java developers work on server code, enterprise code, private company apps, and other things in very different domains that thinks that I work on. These things are important, skilled work; and they're VERY DIFFERENT than Android development. Or game development. Or low-level C development.
>Your attitude reeks or arrogance, elitism and lack of empathy. I'd never want to work with people like you in any capacity.
I do believe I'm a better developer than most. I feel like that's based on objective facts, but it certainly can come across as arrogance or elitism. Truth is I'm happy to work with developers of any skill level, as long as they have the skills to do the tasks they're assigned to do. I spent years working as developer tech support for a popular API, and I helped hundreds of developers to use it correctly, and to find the bugs in their apps -- by the end I had a nontrivial fan club, and a lot of people contacted me later to see if they could work with me. But have it your way.
I don't know how you glean lack of empathy from my post. I empathize with people just fine; if I'm hiring someone, though, I have to make a business decision that makes sense, and I'd have to be stupid to hire someone who can't get the job done, as much as I'd love to give everyone work. Too often I've not been ruthless enough; someone with years of experience in Android AND Java and tons of great references must be good enough to get my project done, right? Wrong. See: Mythical Man Month, some programmers are 10-20x better than others.
If you tell me who you are, though, I'll be sure that we don't accidentally work with each other in any capacity. Though since your comment sparked this thread with hatred at people who hire based on (among other things) GitHub commits, I suspect that isn't a danger to begin with.