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>> The former knows enough about the state of the art in their area of the field

Considering something to be "state of the art" is highly subjective, therefore nothing else than an opinion.

The state of the art is not subjective in the sense that each individual defines their own (although in much of the software industry it can certainly seem that way). Take the SWEBOK [0] as an example. It is a collection of many individuals’ contributions to the body of knowledge; not just some conference speakers’ opinions.

Not everyone maintains or collects together all of the practices in their domain; software moves fast, so sometimes we have to rely on individuals’ experience and wisdom to know all of the different approaches, for example, to software testing in their domain and which ones are best suited to the project at hand.

Their opinion isn’t terribly useful if it goes against the requirements and specifications.

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