It sounds good...in theory. In reality if you are not up to the latest or so, you wont get a job unless you have a contact with a lot to say in the hiring process or you are an expert in some rare domain.
The author's conclusion is a conclusion programmers get to after a couple of technology waves, when they have to face the fact that they have spent precious living hours learning something whose value has become marginal in less than a decade.
But there is no escape to this. Thinking that you will get by because you are an expert in the fundamentals is just wishful thinking.
Being what the OP advocates, i.e. good at seeing patterns and applying common sane practices etc, i.e. basically the good old being wise instead of knowing a lot (useless things usually) isn't that rare of a domain. And even if it were you could still be hired by any proper hiring process which looks beyond the 'how many frameworks do you know' and values your general skills, thereby recognising you could learn whatever framework you want if needed.
Not saying knowledge has no use, there are indeed expert skills which require somehwat more knowlegde than general programming, but if that 'book-knowledge' isn't combined with knowing how to properly apply it in a way your app has a sane architecture on all fronts you're still nowhere.
Thinking that you will get by because you are an expert in the fundamentals is just wishful thinking.
Is it really? Learning my first programming languages in depth took maybe years. But after I got the hang of it a new language, even when syntax is rather different, rather takes weeks now. Apart from me knowing fundamental stuff by now, what else would contribute to that?
I don't disagree with you about the fundamentals, but my experience does not match yours.
i.e: I'm good at the fundamentals and have more than 20 years of experience, but I was hopeless job wise until I found an employer that needed an experienced fireman to save his project on fire.
Now that I have all the modern tech buzzwords in my CV, I get job offers to work with the latest fads all the time.
Before I was looking to change jobs, I thought that I was going to get good positions because of my broad knowledge and experience. Reality proved me wrong.
This hasn't really matched my experience with the industry.
Honestly, most of the hires I've made that have done exceptionally well are the folks who have a very solid grasp of the fundamentals.
I prefer them over a subject matter expert in a framework all week long.
If you can't pick up a framework as part of the job, you're a really mediocre developer.
Does it require slightly more on-boarding time? Sure, but that's a pretty cheap price to pay for a solid long-term employee.
I've had the same experience on the other side of the table as an interviewee. I'll flat out tell them I've never touched their framework of choice. Or used their language of choice. It really doesn't matter as long as you can talk competently about the concepts behind them, and have a good track record.
I agree with you on hiring people that know what they are doing instead of people that just know how to use the flavor of the month.
Sadly, my experience, at least as a candidate, is the opposite of yours. But I'm in a country where most work is off-shored work, and I guess this do play its part.
The author's conclusion is a conclusion programmers get to after a couple of technology waves, when they have to face the fact that they have spent precious living hours learning something whose value has become marginal in less than a decade.
But there is no escape to this. Thinking that you will get by because you are an expert in the fundamentals is just wishful thinking.