[FOSS] How does one respond to this line of questioning?

[Ken D'Ambrosio]

On Fri, April 8, 2011 10:54 am, Mark Komarinski wrote:

> Be honest here, how many of you built your home desktop from scratch?
> How about your parents?  Why do you think there's a discrepancy in those
> numbers?

I have, many times -- including the desktop sitting at my left this very
moment.  So has my father.  Note, however, that if you're talking akin to
a Heathkit -- actually soldering chips -- not so much.

> Along the same lines, if you already have a staff of .NET developers,
> why make them learn PHP and Drupal when they can just do something in
> SharePoint?

One important thing: the more you know, the more you can do.  One reason
I'm learning Python is because of the old "if the only tool you have is a
hammer" adage: I started using Perl for things where, simply put, it
wasn't the right tool.  If you only have, and only hire, .NET developers,
then everything they do is going to be .NET-centric.  But what if you find
yourself reaching out to Linux/Mac clients?  Mono?  Sure... so long as you
don't mind not supporting significant portions of .NET (e.g., Windows
Presentation Foundation).  Every tool in wide use has places it's good,
and places it's less-good.  Adhering to one, blindly, will get you in
trouble -- e.g., my boss, rolling out (in 2008!) a ColdFusion site that is
now largely unsupportable, because it was "what he knew," left over from
the turn of the century.

When I do hiring, I look for work history, and what the applicant knows,
yes.  But I pay at least as much attention to his/her aptitude; what
they're capable of learning.  I'm yet to be bitten by hiring people with a
strong desire and ability to learn.

-Ken