How can I say I have mastered c language?
I disagree with the answers here. The ability to build anything in the language means you are advanced in it, but I would not say mastered. To master a language, you have to not only be capable of building anything, but also writing it in a way that is easy to maintain and understand for other programmers in that language and easy to write unit and integration tests for. Not only that, but you should actually be able to and actually do write unit and integration tests for your code to acheive 98-100‰ test coverage over your entire codebase. You should also know the best techniques and tools for dependency management and builds in that language to simplify getting new developers up to speed on the project with minimal overhead and effort. If open source, anyone familiar with the language you use should be able to download the code and start working on it easily without needing to contact you (at all, ever, for any reason). This is mastery. Being able not only to craft any application so that it just works, but also do so in a way that minimizes the potential for bugs, makes the code easy to extend and maintain, and maximizes the stability of the code.
When can I say I have mastered a programming language?
This is a difficult question. According to Malcolm Gladwill (Outliers book) you have to practice the thing for more than 10K hours. But with programming languages it is too difficult to achieve. By the time you think mastered Java 6, java 7 is in market and so on.Lets keep the philosophy aside, to master programming languages you should work on all possible areas / features of that language. As I know java better I can give example of java. Step1:If you have to be a master of java you should know n implemented all the features of java. (Collections, multi threading, OO concepts etc)Step2: you should be able to suggest which feature can be used best for the given requirements.Step3: You should be able to see the overall picture of the application and suggest ideas/ best practices for the technology.Then you might be considered as master in that technology or language.These are my thoughts. Hope these are helpful.
How do you know that you have mastered a skill?
There is nothing and nothing like mastered.The only stage you can achieve is expertise is some skill. Have you ever heard any name as mastered?Having said that, you can achieve expertise in some or any skill and need to sharpen, improve and innovate the same continuously. The definition and identification of expert is, who they make lesser or (no) mistakes. If you work on some particular activity/skill and if you don't make mistakes to complete the task, you can be considered as expert of same but you can't be mastered in same as somewhere someone can or could it in better way.I hope this suffice:)
When can we say "I have mastered this subject/skill/anything"?
The moment we start feeling that we have mastered a particular subject/skill is the moment we start losing out on our expertise. As soon as we attain the feeling of mastery, we stop accepting the feedback that closes our mind and prevents further honing of our skill / subject.It is not the destination but the journey that gives meaning to our lives.
Is the phrase 'the exact same' a perfect example of redundancy or tautology in English grammar? I hear it a lot from everyday people and journalists.
No, it isn't.Exact implies precision.Same, on the otherhand, refers to similarity.My sister and I wanted the same thing.My sister and I both wanted an apple pie. I wanted my pie made with McIntosh apples, but she wanted hers made with Granny Smith apples.My sister and I wanted exactly the same thing.My sister and I both wanted apple pies made with identical ingredients and of equal size.My sister and I wanted the exact same thing.My sister wanted my apple pie.Redundancy is when a word or phrase is used unnecessarily.Tautology is a form of redundancy, where you use a word, then use another word with similar meaning in the same sentence.She kept repeating the same words over and over again.Repeat means to say again. Using again with repeat is tautology.The use of over and over is not only redundant, but annoyingly so.
Can I ever like math if I don't really like problem solving?
It’s an existential question. There’s no point in learning math if you think it’s useless, i.e. shouldn’t be used to solve problem.On the other hand, an interesting problem (interesting to you that is), doesn’t necessarily teach you the particular math skills being taught at any given moment in class. So such problems are constructed to do so, but may seem artificial — which they are — but you need to believe that they lead (once you have mastered the curriculum) to an ability to attack a wide variety of realistic problems.After that rhetoric, consider a specific situation that leads to a lot of trouble when students first see it in calculus class.A baseball is batted at a 45 degree angle from an altitude of 1.5 metres (typical shoulder height of a ball player) at an initial velocity of 60 km/hr. How high does it go and how far away does it land?Stating the problem in metric units is the first issue: some American students don’t know them well.Next, you need to have some (not much) understanding of gravity near the surface of the earth (it pulls 9.81 m/s^2 down)Next you need to know that derivatives make height, velocity and acceleration quantities that can be calculated by derivative starting with height.Those concepts, outside mathematics, are not necessarily in the student’s mind.But anyone actually interested in baseballs and how far they go wouldn’t mind finding stuff like that out, but it might take more than the 10 minutes you have for such a problem on a test.
Are teachings designed to gradually or incrementally lead one toward Mushin irrelevant when this enigma is at once realized?
Well, when we are at school the teachings are relevant to what we are studying, but once we study it, we don't need to keep returning to those text books. Unless we didn't study it properly and need to check. By reaching the state of mushin you continue to operate and function in the world, with all its phenomenal flowings and challenges, except you have removed the emotional charges that cause the reactions that end up creating suffering. You have mastered the teachings and as long as you stay in tune with that wisdom of truth, you could say the teachings have become superfluous. In a sense, you have become one with the teachings as well as the object of the teachings.The point is that we have experiences, we interpret those experiences according to our belief system and values system, and we react accordingly. Until our belief and values systems are in accord with Truth and wisdom, we react with emotional charges that draw us away from centred, calm, all-encompassing love. And when we are wise enough to live in the state of mushin, that means our interpretation, between the cause and the reaction, is in calm attunement with Truth and wisdom, no ego ('mu', nothing 'shin', mind, 'mushin' no mind, or no ego), so we react properly. That's mushin.