The post is pretty scrambled and confused, I didn't get anything out of it.<p>For an independent assessment of what proficiency means:<p>Being proficient means that you are good enough at what you are doing.<p>There are four ways you can go from there:<p>1) You can vegetate, rest on your laurels, and keep doing the same-old. This will sort of work for a while, but you will likely get into trouble down the road.<p>2) You can continue learning about the technology or application, developing focused expertise. You become <i>the</i> expert at some narrow field.<p>3) You can start learning about the context within which you and your software works. This can lead either to a management position or to a technical integrator-type position depending on what parts of the context you focus on.<p>4) You can branch out, once you are comfortable with what you know in one area, start learning in a different one. Applying your language to a different application, learning a different language, or almost anything. The big benefit here is flexibility.