This stood out to me as the #1 difference between me and successful people. I always notice it in every article or bio of someone successful. Something that has never, and would never happen to me at any point in time, but in the bios, it's always there:
The first person I mentioned my idea to suggested a lunch.
Successful people affirm the consequent [0]. For example, naming your language "D".
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent
Edit: add scholarly footnote and tighten up language.
1. He had a colleague to speak to about this issue. This indicates he and the colleague had a relationship conducive to speaking about such problems, and was in a position to speak to him in the first place.
2. That colleague was engaged enough to want to hear more.
3. The colleague knew a "local C guru" and in turn had enough of a relationship with that guru to arrange a lunch between the three of them.
All of these things point to an environment that helps foster this kind of work. It shows that the author was hard working enough already to be in that position.
I don't know if others interpreted his statement to mean the same things, but that's what I have.
Even after I wrote the compiler and was shipping it, a different colleague asked me one day: "Walter, I have a friend that needs a C compiler. Which one do you recommend?"
Me: "Why, mine (Datalight C), of course!"
Colleague, laughingly, "Not yours, Walter, a real compiler!"
A friend of mine, who was in earshot of this little exchange, thought it was most hilarious.
If you want to do things like this, you've got to have a pretty thick skin for this sort of "help" from your colleagues.