Ok I get not wanting to pick on the guy, but is that really reasonable? Engineering is about solving problems by designing/implementing systems. The more you know about the system(s) you're working with, the better the solutions you can build. Even if you're "just" working at a high level and maximally specialized to a single niche, not knowing how the underlying parts work will really limit you.
Pick the brain of any accomplished engineer, and you'll quickly see that the technical knowledge they use to write code on a day to day basis is only the tip of the iceberg.
It's not reasonable to expect everyone to know everything all the time, but I don't agree people should be aspiring to just know the bare minimum either. Mediocrity is like gravity: if you don't (at least occasionally) aim higher, your trajectory will be lower than you want.
Or maybe we should just avoid judging people based on what they do and don't think is worth their time learning, especially when all we know about them is a previous job title and a short message on an internet message board?
I mean, c'mon, it takes quite a bit of arrogance to condemn someone for some little facet of their life when you know next to nothing about them.
Right obviously very few people will be deep experts on the nitty gritty details of any particular thing, but it's weird to work with computers and not have a broad high-level understanding of something as crucial as TLS and PKI.
You don't know why they haven't taken the time to learn. At least they know enough to know they need an SSL cert. Should I not buckle up in a car if I don't understand the mechanics of how the buckle snaps together?
I don't understand why you're harping on this person for this.
I take issue with that statement not the person. The statement was honest and matter of fact.
Few know how SSLs work, few have time or opportunity or even desire to learn it. Not 'wanting' to understand the details goes against what I would expect. A programmer tries to/needs to understand how the world works. Not wanting to understand the entire stack is a new concept to me.
I think there are a lot of perfectly good programmers who work at the level of the web stack, but couldn't set up a web server with TLS to save their life. There's nothing wrong with that, and suggesting that there is, is just a form of technology elitism and gatekeeping.
This isn't about being able to. I've love to setup machine learning but lack the understanding. It's about taking pride in not having to learn.. taking pride in not having to understand how things work.
Technology shouldn't be a blackbox and shouldn't be celebrated as such.