Good point, and I agree, I also enjoy working with people who can admit when they just don't know something. It shouldn't be so hard to do, there is a nearly infinite amount of stuff each of us doesn't know -- especially when it comes to forward looking challenges we just haven't started thinking concretely about yet. My favorite response when asked about such things is "I'm not sure; we'll burn that bridge when we get to it".
This topic is even more relevant for software over other types of knowledge, IMO, keeping in mind the Knuth quote "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it".
Even when I'm pretty sure that task XYZ can be completed relatively easily using language A, framework B and API C, I still won't answer in complete absolutes unless I've worked on the compiler for A, written a fair amount of B, and previously exhausted all the functionality of C.
This topic is even more relevant for software over other types of knowledge, IMO, keeping in mind the Knuth quote "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it".
Even when I'm pretty sure that task XYZ can be completed relatively easily using language A, framework B and API C, I still won't answer in complete absolutes unless I've worked on the compiler for A, written a fair amount of B, and previously exhausted all the functionality of C.