How do you define proficiency in C and C++?

[IR]

Nobody is insisting on anything (except John A. Byerly, who seems
to insist that books are unnecessary).

Sorry then. The post I was responding to (along with a few others
you wrote in this same thread) gave me that erroneous impression.

Please feel free to learn
without reading books. If you can achieve the same result as
somebody who does read books, all the power to you. I'm yet to
meet somebody who managed to learn [programming] without books.

FWIW, I never ever read a _programming techniques_ book (to my
understanding, reference books are not concerned by your statement,
as they don't contain any advice but rather technical facts ; please
correct me if my assumption is wrong).

However I still read a lot, mostly programming articles (GOTW and
DDJ are the first resources that come to my mind, but there are
plenty others, including technical papers from US universities, or
some newsgroup/forum threads for specific subjects).


As far as I'm concerned, I find such resources way more
understandable, mainly due to their reduced scope. And whenever I
need a more general (or more specific) point of view on a peculiar
subject, I always find an article that covers it.

Of course one's mileage may vary, depending on how (s)he feels
against a particular media (not sure this sentence is correct
english, I hope you get my point).


Cheers,