As he said he was green, I think this really shows that early on, young developers do not always understand the importance of requirements gathering and problem understanding.
Just yesterday, a junior developer from my team came to me about a request to generate some output from historical data. I went back to the business side and determined it was just a simple switch of several columns in the input data to get the results.
My junior developer at first thought it was some monumental problem that was going to require a lot of work.
I'm a noob when it comes to coding but I worked a technical job with customers for 20 years before changing paths.
I was in a position where I joined a place as the "new old guy" and several new college grads.
One day the president of the company comes to me and asks "You know the questions to ask! Some of our experienced guys don't."
It takes a lot of effort for two people or groups to form an idea and be on the same page, understanding "all" doesn't mean *, thinking of roadblocks before you get there (seeing them coming), softly working around those roadblocks, helping frustrated people, offering alternatives without going off the rails, listening closely to find out what is REALLY important and etc. I think that stuff just comes with experience working with humans.
My own experience makes me think everyone should be required to work some form of technical support for a while ;)
Just yesterday, a junior developer from my team came to me about a request to generate some output from historical data. I went back to the business side and determined it was just a simple switch of several columns in the input data to get the results.
My junior developer at first thought it was some monumental problem that was going to require a lot of work.