

Ask HN: when can i say i know a programming lang - yunus

when you say you know a x programming lang. what does that implies to whether you know syntax of the programming lang or all the libraries and method in the programming language
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fabricode
Probably when you've found that you don't have to read the documentation for
the base language in a while. Everyone constantly reads docs on infrequently
used libraries and for gotcha parts of a language, but that's far different
from having to look up how to create/destroy objects, perform all
conditionals, use the data types, etc.

Equivalently: when you wouldn't be embarrassed in an interview to write
something on the board in that language.

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LarryMade
I myself would say so if I can write effective code in it (beyond hello world)
and understand the syntax. Many of the languages are too deep to know all the
libraries, but you have enough skills with it and with a language guide or
google to get it to do what you want.

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kls
When given any set of requirements you can implement it in said language. You
may not know every particular library but you know enough of the concepts to
read the API and implement it, without hacking together a maintenance monster.

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bdfh42
When you have learned and tried out all of the clever bits and then gone back
to writing simple code that is easy to debug and maintain.

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jordhy
I would say that you know a programming language when you can contribute to an
open source software and add value to the system (as judged by the community).

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khyryk
On the same topic, how much should I know about concurrency and threading in
any given language?

