The moment you start attacking problems from a purely mathematical standpoint, where the language implementation is a foregone conclusion.<p>For instance, consider writing an algorithm which ranks poker hands. If you find yourself bogged down in conditional logic, iterating through cards, you're a junior developer.<p>The moment you realize a histogram solves most of this problem and substantially flattens the effort, you've grown substantially.<p>Here's a bit of context: <a href="http://nsayer.blogspot.com/2007/07/algorithm-for-evaluating-poker-hands.html" rel="nofollow">http://nsayer.blogspot.com/2007/07/algorithm-for-evaluating-...</a>