> and become "proficient" in a language in a week.
I'd argue that this might not be a stretch in some situations. If you have a lot of software development experience in varied environments (back end, front end, desktop, command line tools, embedded, etc.) and with various dissimilar programming languages (static/dynamic, compiled/interpreted, Algol-inspired/not-Algol inspired, etc.), you should at some point be able to pick up a language at a decent rate.
And even though you won't master its idioms, unlike a total newbie, you'll be aware that you don't know its idioms. A sort of "known unknowns", if you will.
I'd argue that this might not be a stretch in some situations. If you have a lot of software development experience in varied environments (back end, front end, desktop, command line tools, embedded, etc.) and with various dissimilar programming languages (static/dynamic, compiled/interpreted, Algol-inspired/not-Algol inspired, etc.), you should at some point be able to pick up a language at a decent rate.
And even though you won't master its idioms, unlike a total newbie, you'll be aware that you don't know its idioms. A sort of "known unknowns", if you will.