What is the best way to talk about your experience with a specific programming language?

I articulate my proficiency in the chosen programming language by first outlining the duration and depth of my experience. I then highlight key projects, emphasizing complexity and impact, along with challenges overcome. I underscore collaborative efforts, detailing teamwork, code reviews, and adherence to best practices. Concluding with ongoing learning initiatives, I affirm commitment to continuous improvement and staying current with evolving language features. This concise narrative communicates technical prowess and a strategic, adaptable, and collaborative mindset.

It might be humbling to many people but always accept that you aren't the best programmer in that programming language. If have an understanding of only the fundamental pieces of a programming language, building blocks like conditional statements, loops, functions, etc., it means you are a beginner. If you have awareness of how to use those building blocks to design a solution and implement it along with writing proper tests for it, you can consider yourself an intermediate programmer in that language. Now, if you can think of optimization and scalability using some lesser known nuances of a programming language, you become an expert in that field.

When talking about a programming language, keep it simple and clear. Share real projects you've worked on using that language. Highlight challenges faced and how you overcame them. Use examples to show your skills. Let your enthusiasm shine—make it a story that reflects your journey with that language.

Keep in mind about your personal background and what previous languages you are coming from. If you are coming from python world and trying out C++ then your personal experience is going to be very different from someone coming from C++ and trying out python for the first time

I agree that concrete examples help but they are merely a way of supporting your points and having no concrete examples or large scale projects should not stop you from being able to speak about the language. Your examples can simply be a little program you wrote to say, automate something or something similar. If you don’t speak about the language because you don’t have a concrete example, you won’t get to hear feedback or suggestions as well leading to a larger barrier for entry which is unnecessary.

Talking about your experience with a specific programming language is best done through concrete examples that showcase your proficiency. For instance, you could discuss a project where you utilized the programming language to solve a complex problem efficiently. Highlight specific functionalities or features of the language that were crucial in achieving your goals. Discuss challenges you encountered and how your expertise in the language helped overcome them. Providing specific code snippets or explaining how you optimized performance or improved functionality using the language can be excellent examples to demonstrate your experience.

Knowing how to communicate your qualifications is something that must be practiced, communication in itself is a softskill that must be practiced by a programmer, however as they say "a picture is worth a thousand words" so if you can present your experiences and achievements they already speak by yourself. Talking about some experience/knowledge is easy when you actually have the knowledge.

Whenever you are designing a solution or implementing it, there are decisions you make - some intuitive and implicit but some require proper brainstorming, taking help from others and are explicit. In programming, there are tradeoffs more often than having a clear winner. Respect the tradeoffs and have a proper understanding of your usecase. Explain why you chose a particular approach over other approaches, what was your rationale behind it. This will help you gain perspective from others as well and your depth in that domain will increase.

In particular, demonstrating that you understand the trade-offs by comparing to other languages that could have worked in this context is critical. This shows you made a choice, not accepted a default.

Understanding a language fundamentally can come from a variety of different angles. For example, Node.js was originally created by Ryan Dahl to address what he saw as limitations of the Apache HTTP Server as it created a thread for each connection. So he built a non-blocking, event driven I/O to support data-intensive real-time applications and unify Javascript across client and server side. Later on a strong community and package manager developed adding to the list of fundamental reasons to pick Node.js for certain problem sets. Many times the secret to understanding technology is going back to it's human roots, which can be instrumental when explaining your choices.

When talking about your proficiency with a particular programming language, begin by indicating your skill level, whether it's basic, intermediate, or advanced. Next, detail your involvement in projects or assignments utilizing that language, emphasizing your contributions and accomplishments. Highlight any technologies, frameworks, or tools within the language's ecosystem that you've utilized. Additionally, if relevant, discuss any hurdles you've surmounted and insights you've gained, showcasing your comprehensive understanding and adeptness in resolving challenges.

When you speak of the positives or negatives of a programming language, you must also consider the reason a language exists or what the language itself is trying to solve. For example, C++ is close to 200 times faster than Python, so, why should anyone use any Python at all instead of using C++ for everything? Well, because while Python has a runtime tradeoff it makes your development time significantly faster compared to C++. These two programming languages exist to solve different problems, so it’s never a 1 to 1 comparison. You need to understand the tradeoffs a programming language has and why, when you do that you’ll probably like every language (or most) for its own reasons.

One thing I have found helpful is that one needs to be proficient in one or two languages that can help him sail through the industry pretty well. When talking about their experience with a particular programming language, one shall mention about the projects he undertook with that given programming language. Projects are good ways to access one's knowledge level regarding a particular programming language. When mentioning the projects, take your time to highlight the difficulties you faced, how you tackled them and key learnings you got from it.