I think public speaking skills are important for developers, not because they have to do public speaking, but because it trains them to distill their thoughts i

I think public speaking skills are important for developers, not because they have to do public speaking, but because it trains them to distill their thoughts into simpler and finer points. In public speaking, you are trained to take the common denominator, which to some extent "dumbs down" the message, but makes it more comprehensible by anyone. Such a skill would be beneficial to a team, especially if you're trying to explain a bug to QA (who will never have to understand the underlying code), or propose a feature to a superior (will this earn us revenue?). So yeah I think public speaking skills for developers are essential, but not to do public speaking (presenting perhaps?)