Is the best author the one who knows the most words? Is the best musician the one who can play the most notes? Is the best painting the one with the most brush strokes? Of course not--these very ideas are absurd.Yet too often,we think that the best programmers are the ones who know the most language features. This idea is equally absurd:The hard part of programming is not learnig the details of language features--it is understanding how to solve problems.