[xyzelement]

Good question. It's a three part defeat:

First, are you living your own best life? If you ask him "do you want to be limited by comms skills for the rest of your life, in all the ways it affects you and home and at work" he's say "no, I'd rather not have this problem" but then we couldn't really get it to change. So he fell short of his own recognition of what his life could be.

Second, it just limits you. There's nothing wrong with writing parsers and someone has to do that, but there's a difference between "choosing" that and "being limited to it." Versatility and capability is important. Say he wanted to go work somewhere else, the more skills and versatility you have, the more options you have.

Third, even within such a job you're still limited. EG: are you having a technical debate on your team? The better you can communicate, the more likely you are to advocate well for your solution, the more likely your good ideas will materialize, etc.