[baq]

A competent developer should be aware of the tools of the trade.

I'm not saying a competent developer should be proficient in using gerrit, but they should know that it isn't an obscure tool - it's a google-sponsored project handling millions of lines of code internally in google and externally. It's like calling golang an obscure language when all you ever did is java or typescript.

[foldr]

It’s silly to assume that someone isn’t competent just because you know about a tool that they don’t know about. The inverse is almost certainly also true.

Is there some kind of Google-centrism at work here? Most devs don’t work at Google or contribute to Google projects, so there is no reason for them to know anything about Gerrit.

[TheDong]

> Most devs don’t work at Google or contribute to Google projects, so there is no reason for them to know anything about Gerrit.

Most devs have never worked on Solaris, but if I ask you about solaris and you don't even know what it is, that's a bad sign for how competent a developer you are.

Most devs have never used prolog or haskell or smalltalk seriously, but if they don't know what they are, that means they don't have curiosity about programming language paradigms, and that's a bad sign.

Most competent professional developers do code review and will run into issues with their code review tooling, and so they'll have some curiosity and look into what's out there.

There's no reason for most developers to know random trivia outside of their area of expertise "what compression format does png use by default", but text editors and code review software are fundamental developer tools, so fundamental that every competent developer I know has enough curiosity to know what's out there. Same for programming languages, shells, and operating systems.

[foldr]

These are all ridiculous shibboleths. I know what Solaris is because I’m an old fart. I’ve never used it nor needed to know anything about it. I’d be just as (in)competent if I’d never heard of it.