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While reading a technical book, I stumbled upon the following sentence:

It is important [that all Java programmers be fully versed in, and comfortable with, the traditional approach].

For me, it's kinda counterintuitive to see Java programmers be here. I would understand for Java programmers to be or that Java programmers are, but not the existing variant.

Since it’s far from the first time I have seen such a construct, obviously there must be some grammatical explanation to it. I only wish someone could enlighten me about the exact rules being used here.

F.E.
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Semisonic
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    This is what some folks call a "subjunctive" clause. Linguists call it a non-tensed (i.e, infinitive) that-complement. After certain predicates (important is one such), normal tensed that-complements get an untensed verb to denote hypothetical contexts. E.g, It's important that he's here means he's here, and that's an important fact (with a tensed he's); It's important that he be here (with an untensed he be) means he better be here on time, and that's an important fact. – John Lawler Mar 05 '15 at 01:05
  • You cannot say: "This is the first time I see" something; you must instead say "This is the first time that I’ve seen" or uncontracted with "I have". The pair "It’s important that they be/are" mean very different things depending on which branch is taken. – tchrist Mar 05 '15 at 01:06
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    @tchrist, I suppose you have edited the post's contents. Okay, assuming that you are correct in your statement, could you please explain what exactly is wrong with this is the first time i see something? It's not like I wanna emphasize that I am done seeing that sentence, in fact, I'm still in progress of analyzing and, therefore, seeing it. – Semisonic Mar 05 '15 at 01:14
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    @Semisonic The English present sense often fails to map to the present tense of other languages. Often English requires either a present participle (I am working right now) or a past participle (I have never worked here before, this is the first time I’ve ever worked here). This is one of those times. If you want an oversimplified rule to blindly apply, consider "first time" as something that bars the simple present. That’s not really true, but it will prevent a certain class of error. – tchrist Mar 05 '15 at 01:16
  • @JohnLawler, thank you, you did make things clearer to me. – Semisonic Mar 05 '15 at 01:21
  • @tchrist, interesting statement you've made. Could you possibly direct me to some more in-depth coverage of this topic? Something that would explain the logic behind these rules, because so far I don't think I feel how to handle such cases correctly. – Semisonic Mar 05 '15 at 01:28
  • Your example sentence has a mandative interpretation; and it is in the form of a subjunctive mandative. It uses a mandative word "important" (but be aware that not all uses of the word "important" are mandative). Your mandative construction uses a subjunctive clause (the stuff between the brackets "[ … ]"), which uses the verb "be" (which is the plain form of the verb lexeme BE). – F.E. Mar 05 '15 at 03:20
  • @Semisonic I can find a few questions here on ELU for why nth time triggers present perfect not simple present, but I don’t have an academic reference explaining why. Also, existing questions have very limited and to my mind unsatisfying answers to your question about it. – tchrist Mar 05 '15 at 03:28
  • Here are some posts related to the mandative construction: 1) Tensed verb form or the plain form when used after “that” --in a mandative construction, 2) “that one consider” or “that one considers”? --duplicate. – F.E. Mar 05 '15 at 03:31
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    @F.E., thanks a lot for your input, those linked posts do offer a deeper coverage of this topic. – Semisonic Mar 05 '15 at 07:43

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