I was baffled by this as well for 15+ years until just last year I had a key insight: most developers don’t like to read. In fact, most people don’t like to read. Most people are intrinsically lazy and since growing your skills involves hard work, they don’t do it unless pushed to do so, either by life circumstance or necessity.

Time and time again people have asked me: “how do I get really good at $tech or software engineering?” I recommend a few books or send them my standard list of must-reads. In 999/1000 cases the person approaching me gives me that defeated look that I know means: “Oh. I was hoping you’d say something not involving working hard.” Most people are polite enough not to say it to my face.

When folks have problems with HTTP I ask them if they’ve read RFC 2616, and if not, I offer to bring them a nicely printed and bound copy. It typically goes unread though some use it as a reference. Only once did someone follow my recommendation and read it cover to cover.

Folks seems to lack a kind of basic economic perspective. Spend a week, month, something along those lines growing your skills (or even just 30 minutes reading the docs on that thing you just spent 2 hours declaring idiotic). Yes, this means probably giving up your favorite Netflix binge, video game, or drinking on weeknights in favor of study. But once these skills are internalized they pay back for a lifetime with good returns. Yet for some strange reason people prefer to keep thinking short term and so they never learn what they’re doing. It used to make me sad but I’m making peace with it.