hi, just read your article ( obvious ^^ )
I agree that you don’t have to be a specific amount of time in the “business” to be experienced. Of course the time you were working on projects and programming matters, don’t get me wrong. But that’s only one aspect of experience I would say. Also other aspects like
- working alone or in a team
- managing projects or “only” executing
- project-size
- different type of technologies
- and other stuff
are main aspects to gain experience.
I think the “trial and error” method is only in specific situations acceptable, but not in “serious” development where you want to push some major changes or new features to a production environment or similar. It can be helpful if you want to really “try” something, but not because you have no idea what’s going on, but maybe to see what happens and earn insights what’s going on. So I think for the learning purpose it is suitable ( maybe also other situations? ) — which of course should not only be the trial-error-method, but also reading manuals, documentation & so on.
So yes, experience is not only the time-aspect how long you have been a developer, but the combination of different, important aspects.
Cheers,
Sahin