

If He Walks Like A Ruby Developer But Talks Like A PHP Developer, What Is He? - RyanMcGreal
http://lostintangent.com/2010/01/26/if-he-walks-like-a-ruby-developer-but-he-talks-like-a-php-developer-then-what-exactly-is-he/

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gexla
A quote from the article...

"I’ve interviewed many developers who applied to a position that was attached
to a specific programming language, and didn’t even know that language, but I
still gave my recommendation to hire them. The reason was that I felt
comfortable enough with their current skill set that I knew I could not only
mentor them to transition in another language, but they could become really
strong. Truthfully speaking, I never once saw a negative recourse from one of
those decisions (thank goodness!)."

Contractors have even more reason to identify themselves as an X developer.
Most contractors get paid for what they can do "right now." They don't get
paid to learn a new language or for any transitioning period. In most cases, a
contractor just needs to get the job done.

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lostintangent
That's a great point gexla. I wasn't taking into account contractors in the
article (naively so). I'll add an annotation to the article that mentions how
contract work is slightly different.

