>Within two weeks, I was writing code in that language every bit as good as my coworkers'.
Just cause your coworkers sucked doesn't invalidate the point. I challenge anyone to write good code in a new language after 2 weeks of learning it. You can hack, sure, but I've never seen anyone write anything respectable in a language they've only been in for 2 weeks. In the worst case they think it's good and it's hard to teach them how to do it right because they think they know it all already.
Also, if you claim to know the semantics but not the library of a language, you probably don't actually know the semantics. Corner cases matter.
Just cause your coworkers sucked doesn't invalidate the point. I challenge anyone to write good code in a new language after 2 weeks of learning it. You can hack, sure, but I've never seen anyone write anything respectable in a language they've only been in for 2 weeks. In the worst case they think it's good and it's hard to teach them how to do it right because they think they know it all already.
Also, if you claim to know the semantics but not the library of a language, you probably don't actually know the semantics. Corner cases matter.