RE: [PHP] What makes a PHP expert

[snip] I often see job ads asking for a PHP expert and was wandering what you all thought makes a PHP programmer into an expert. what would you mark out as the key skills that distinguishes an expert from the ordinary i.e. OOP mastery, regular expressions etc. [/snip] First I would consider number of years of programming experience including how many years a programmer had been using PHP. I would examine some code and look for organization, documentation, and consistency. Is the programmer published (articles, books, etc) which may not count against expertise? An expert encompasses so much more than skills. For instance, I could be an expert on football because I understand history of the game, have been published, understand game planning and execution, and have played at the wide receiver position. Only the last 2 items really require skills.