I think you're slightly off the mark. The defense secretary probably has no idea what Ruby-on-Rails or NOP sleds are. He wants to encourage folks who are clea

I think you're slightly off the mark. The defense secretary probably has no idea what Ruby-on-Rails or NOP sleds are. He wants to encourage folks who are clearly intelligent and strongly motivated, with a background in software, to come to the DoD and apply their energies and efforts to learn about electronic offense and defense. Surely they don't expect _everyone_ who enrolls in the Army Corps of Engineering to understand the engineering fundamentals of war machines. They teach it to them on top of their diverse backgrounds in other branches of engineering (water/waste, civilian infrastructure, automotive, etc...). Their background is important to learning the new knowledge quickly -- and they have a gap to fill. Few folks are born with expertise in design patterns, user analytics, and UI design. They develop those skills with education and practice. The DoD wants those same folks to apply their energy and brainpower to learn and develop a new sector of knowledge. If they could just hire computer security experts right away they wouldn't be targeting app developers.