We were discussing in our meeting yesterday why it's so hard to find developers. I had a long-winded and complicated explanation.
Developers come in many varieties, with a wide range of experience. There are lots of people that call themselves "developers", but a .net developer is not a PHP developer which is not a java developer. Each has different skills, and while picking up a new language may be easier for someone who already codes, they will lack all of the special knowledge of that language.
Within that language specialty, there are different skills and skill levels. For example, there are aton of Drupal and Wordpress theme developers out there that "know" PHP enough to do that work. But anything beyond a theme is likely beyond them. They could probably learn it, but it would take a while - you couldn't just hire one of these guys and expect them to build you a new web app from scratch. At least, not one that's any good....
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