> What language can one say that they fully master?

And does it really matter if you don't? No, not at all.

It's worth pointing out one measure of complexity: the Stroustrup book (4th ed) is 1376 pages, and that was 2013. Since then there's been how many layers more on top?

As a contrast, the description of Common Lisp syntax fits on a sticky note, but the library and semantics spec take about the same number of pages to describe a similar amount of functionality.

The two extremes represent different locations on the syntax-vs-library complexity tradeoff continuum.

>What language can one say that they fully master?

Incidentally, after working with node for a couple years near really knowledgeable coworkers, it's been the first time in my life as a developer that I feel I have a near complete understanding of the language I'm using.

Granted, most of that feeling probably comes from the small standard library (which is the root of several important issues, as we all know), and the feeling adds nothing to your life as a developer except for a vague sense of comfort, but it's still nice.

But you don't hear people make the same sort of comments about languages like Go and Scheme. There's a continuation from complex to less complex and C++ is one one end of that.

how about Java? it's a small enough language that one can encounter and use every language feature within a few years of professional development, and without needing to work in any obscure domain.

admittedly, Java got a lot bigger in Java 8 and beyond. but it's still the language I'd put forward as "most possible to master".

Mastery comes when you know most of the 1st order stuff and can even anticipate the stuff you don't know because you also know the 2nd order stuff. In Java this is easy because after you get proficiency you can really dig in and read the JVM Spec and the JLS(1), and you have lots of great, powerful tools available to examine the running JVM, bytecode, etc. In other languages, this is a lot harder. JavaScript (ES6) kinda sorta has a specification(2) but it didn't start out that way and the jsvm doesn't have one (AFAIK). The implementation and the tooling for JS is widely varying, and typically includes lots of non-JS stuff like the DOM and networking - which is (really!) great but lacks focus. Somehow lots of popular languages exist without specifications, like Python, Ruby, PHP, Markdown. This is, IMHO, a very serious drawback because to become a master of these languages requires that you become a master of the concrete interpreter implementation, which is easily an order-of-magnitude harder and less direct than reading a specification.

(1) https://docs.oracle.com/javase/specs/

(2) http://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/6.0/

Sure, other languages are also hard to fully grok, and there are . But the consequences of not knowing (or misunderstanding) something in say Python is typically way less serious than in C++. This is not all due to language design though, C++ tends to be used in some domains that are more tricky. Like where there are real-time constraints, on constrained devices and unattended operation.

I'm like you! And after I argued with someone on another thread here and they told me to watch CppCon talks I realized there are plenty (and plenty of new C++ features) that are not about template metaprogramming and that are useful... won't learn it at 100% but the experience has made me feel like I could improve my C++ every day.