I created the list for underclassmen in my college to start learning technologies outside of school work, so a title like this will create incentive for them to start learning on their own. Many students here turned out to like the list so I decided to share it here as well.
Do I consider myself an expert, no. A pro? No.
Libraries, processors, application being built always expose challenges and things to be aware of.
This is why I take exception with the phrasing of "Pro" based off of a reading list.
Despite who my employer is, I know much more about the internals and libraries associated with BSD and Linux related programming in the language of "C" than I do Win. Where do I declare myself an expert? "stdlib"? "stdio"? And so forth.
I'm continually a student in the areas that pop up that interest me (and the ones I wish to maintain).
A good professional takes pride in his work, and aspires to improve his craft.
False modesty gets you nowhere.
That said, are you sure it's a good idea to remove modesty from your mind? It seems like more have fallen to pride than were lost to modesty.
Link to a cool TED-talk (20 hours): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MgBikgcWnY
:)