Mastery

Question

When can one say one has truly mastered a language/the fundamentals of programming?

Answer 1

I would say that one has mastered a language when they can code without thinking about how to code, when they don't need to think about syntax and how does this work and how does that work.

Think about it like learning a spoken language. When you are young or learning a new language; you don't know many words, you don't know proper grammar or the correct order that the words should be in, you use incorrect words or say something with more or less words than is necessary to make it understood.

But then once you are older and you are speaking your native language to another person who speaks the same native language, you don't think about such things. You just speak your language without thinking about the language. You think about what to say and how you are going to say it, such as speaking kindly or harshly. You have mastered a language when you can speak it fluently without thinking about the language itself as you speak.

That is how I, for one, view mastery in programming languages.