Interesting read, especially after On Interviewing and Interview Questions

I'd like to add not to stare yourself blind on perl (or any other programming language for that matter) to grade yourself. Have a look at for example versioning of software (I recommend subversion), testing (TDD, Test Driven Development), Extreme Programming, Design patterns, Refactoring... These things you can use in any programming language.

++ a nice generalization that dovetails nicely with Raising Your Level of Perl Mastery

That's an interesting way to look at things, and is consistent with what I've read on such topics elsewhere. It brought to mind two things my mentor passed to me; my brothers and sisters here may take them for whatever they deem them to be worth.

There are three levels of understanding: awareness, familiarity, and proficiency.

1. Awareness begins when one first learns that something exists. One may then learn a bit about that thing, and even apply some of that knowledge. (In Perl, this would mean, at most, that someone might install a Perl-based tool, edit the config variables, maybe even slightly modify cut-n-paste code/one-liners to suit their purposes)
2. Familiarity begins when one first gains the ability to solve simple problems and/or answer simple questions about a topic. Eventually, one can solve any common problem or answer any common question -- though their solutions and answers may be inexact, inefficient, or subtly flawed. (In Perl, this is where I am at: given a problem solvable by computing, I can probably solve it with Perl. Yet my solution will likely not be the best, particularly novel, or elegant. I may do some things without entirely understanding why I do them.)
3. Proficiency begins when one can answer the same question/solve the same problem in several different ways, and reaches its epitome when one knows which of the possible answers/solutions is the best for a given case, and why. Proficient individuals may begin to truly expand their area of knowledge. (In Perl, these are the people who debug the interpreter; know without testing which of several approaches is fastest, least fragile, etc.; and are capable of actively improving perl.)

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Each problem, and each solution, comes from the three stages of thought: knowledge, understanding, and wisdom. Imagine yourself standing on train tracks:

1. Knowledge is the awareness that you are on the train tracks, a train is approaching, there is a cliff to your right, and that this is not a good situation.
2. Understanding is the awareness that remaining where you are for much longer will end your life, as will jumping right.
3. Wisdom is getting off the tracks as quickly as possible by jumping to the left.