"Knowing" a Language

I was curious, I was wondering what some people consider as "Knowing" or "Mastering" a language.

What I consider to be "Knowing" a language, is being able to nearly all of it's methods and functions and loops without having to look them up on the wiki. What I considering to be a "Mastered" language, is when you can walk right into a college class, take the final exam, and come back out with a degree proving your knowledge.

Apparently it was Socrates who said:

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

I find it's usually the case that a person's knowledge of a given topic is inversely proportional to what they believe it to be. It's not until they've put a great deal of time and effort into studying that they realise that what they've learned is a miniscule amount relative to the amount of information available.

I would consider a language "mastered" if you knew and understood all aspects of it, along with the best use case for every possible structure (plus the best structure for every possible use case). For most languages, I don't believe this to be humanly possible. Go read the story of Mel, and understand even he would've had room for improvement.

Fortunately, it's relatively easy to hit the stage of "competency" compared to that of "mastery". Plus, these days thanks to the internet it's incredibly easy to fill gaps in your own knowledge regarding whatever it is that you actually need to do at the time on a case by case basis. I'd argue that knowing how to learn and research topics in general is more important than specialising in any one.

In short, don't strive for perfection. Spending time dwelling on your "level" only slows you down. To start learning a language, you've first got to understand you don't know it already. To keep learning, you've got to understand that you still don't know it.

Bomb Bloke, on 18 September 2014 - 06:03 PM said:

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The story about Mel was amazing! How did you find it? :D/>

Obviously mastering something is extremely difficult. I wouldn't call it humanly impossible, as the language was generated by humans. But it's so close it might as well be.

As for what I think constitutes "knowing" a language (not quite mastered), I don't think it comes down to specifics like knowing most of the functions/classes/etc.. It just comes down to being competent in the language and being able to use and understand the patterns people use in it. I'd say I know Lua very well. I know the ins and outs of its bytecode, its syntax and grammar, the way it handles values and the programming patterns most regularly found. But I still have to look up the parameters of standard library functions all the time. I may not know every little thing about the language, but I know very well how to use it.

TheOddByte, on 24 September 2014 - 08:12 PM said:

The story about Mel was amazing! How did you find it? :D/>

About a decade ago, a guy I studied with pointed me towards the jargon file. A lot has changed since those days, but I'd still consider it worth a read.

Bomb Bloke, on 24 September 2014 - 11:34 PM said:

TheOddByte, on 24 September 2014 - 08:12 PM said:

The story about Mel was amazing! How did you find it? :D/>

About a decade ago, a guy I studied with pointed me towards the jargon file. A lot has changed since those days, but I'd still consider it worth a read.

I'll read that when I have the time, seems great by reading just a little from it.

Jiloacom, on 18 September 2014 - 02:36 PM said:

What I considering to be a "Mastered" language, is when you can walk right into a college class, take the final exam, and come back out with a degree proving your knowledge.

This isn't even close to mastery. College doesn't cover anywhere near the complete story of a language. I did exactly what you describe above, then got out into the real world and realized just how little was actually covered.

Myrddraall, on 25 September 2014 - 01:45 PM said:

Jiloacom, on 18 September 2014 - 02:36 PM said:

What I considering to be a "Mastered" language, is when you can walk right into a college class, take the final exam, and come back out with a degree proving your knowledge.

This isn't even close to mastery. College doesn't cover anywhere near the complete story of a language. I did exactly what you describe above, then got out into the real world and realized just how little was actually covered.

Okay. It's just my opinion.

I think it proves my point nicely, though.