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Agreed. I learned this in our new student orientation.

"If you can't recompile a linux kernel by the time you graduate, you have learned nothing. Oh, yeah, also, we wont teach you that - it's just something you will run into. "

-- Professor Norman S. Matloff

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Anyone who talks about compiling the Linux kernel as a measure of difficulty or knowledge obviously knows nothing. I could teach my 9-year-old nephew how to do that.

Arrogance crystallized. Don't you have a bridge to tend to?

Compiling a linux kernel is just following a set of instructions. You don't need to know anything about computer science to do that.

The thing with instructions is always this: The first instant something goes wrong while following them you have to give up if you don't know quite a bit about what you're doing anyway.

I believe I'm not the only one who, when something goes wrong, I become more determined and think "I might learn something here" followed by searching the internet for things related to what went wrong.

This is basically how I learned to program.

Right, but that takes it from "just following instructions" to a thing that requires you to build a mental model of the system you're working with. It also requires you to have confidence that you will find the answer in bounded time.

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