I'm sure most Java recruiters agree with you. But, as a programmer myself, I've only met a handful of other programmers whose knowledge I'd value over their in

I'm sure most Java recruiters agree with you. But, as a programmer myself, I've only met a handful of other programmers whose knowledge I'd value over their interested-ness. I'll probably never have the opportunity to hire such a person, so when I interview I look for competence and learning potential (curiousity, humility, ...). Also, I regard programming as a maximally innovative field. There's no reason in principle to do the same thing more than once in programming, and the practical reasons all seem to derive from a combination of mistakes and misfortune.