Agreed, a week for basic literacy and years for mastery. Based on my own experience I'd say it takes two years of using a language every day and following news

Agreed, a week for basic literacy and years for mastery. Based on my own experience I'd say it takes two years of using a language every day and following news groups to be able to write it idiomatically. Every year after that helps you get stuff done (knowledge of tool chains, packages, and the dustiest corners of the language) but the returns are diminishing. Code from those early days of basic literacy are the thoughest to look back on. "Hey, why does this perl code look like it is trying to be C++?"