> And when they left your company, those talented developers suddenly found themselves 3-5 years behind people who would previously have been their equal.
Domain specific knowledge doesn't cause this. If you are limited by how much of it you have or don't have then you have a long way to come as a programmer... having used a language or framework before is only really useful so that you don't get snagged by gotchas or weird and wonderful eccentricities of the framework or language.
In reality getting employed is more difficult without experience on a CV, but if you are intelligent and can get an interview its not usually a problem - smart people know, or can be taught quickly, the lack of value specific experience has in most contexts (i.e. anything where you aren't just urgently crunching something out of the door). :)
Domain specific knowledge doesn't cause this. If you are limited by how much of it you have or don't have then you have a long way to come as a programmer... having used a language or framework before is only really useful so that you don't get snagged by gotchas or weird and wonderful eccentricities of the framework or language.
In reality getting employed is more difficult without experience on a CV, but if you are intelligent and can get an interview its not usually a problem - smart people know, or can be taught quickly, the lack of value specific experience has in most contexts (i.e. anything where you aren't just urgently crunching something out of the door). :)