[lpolovets]

I think the claimed point is valid. If you are a good programmer, you can improve your chances of finding a job much more by polishing up your resume, writing awesome cover letters, networking, etc. than you can by learning new programming languages.

It's all about bang for the buck. If you spend 100 hours learning, your programming skills and hence your ability to find a job might improve by a few percent; if you spend 100 hours on marketing yourself better, your programming skills stay the same but your chances of finding a job will improve greatly. It's like a lot of software... once the internals are good enough, it's much better to make the UI good than to keep the UI crappy while making the back end a little better.

Also, anecdotally, every good company that I've interviewed with has said that if I am the right person for the job, then they will give me the benefit of the doubt that I can pick up whatever technologies are necessary.