All of this is clearly a matter of balance. If you were to have infinite time, you would be idiotic to _not_ spend a bunch of time fully internalizing the enti

All of this is clearly a matter of balance. If you were to have infinite time, you would be idiotic to _not_ spend a bunch of time fully internalizing the entire stack; or at least, trying to comprehend as much as possible given your non-infinite memory. Hell, whilst you're at it, throw in a rounded education in the humanities and sprinkle a ton of socialization in there too. But you don't have infinite time. So instead, you try to find the balance that allows you to perform the task you wish to perform. And at that point it's a completely personal decision. Perhaps you spend more on soft skills because you have managerial aspirations. Perhaps you drill down into bit banging simply because it's of intrinsic interest to you. There probably is some basic level that's useful for every programmer to have, sure, but what that even means is dependent on sector. I don't know a thing* about Windows because it's both highly uninteresting to me, but also because it'd be a waste of time for me to bother with it. (Perhaps the two are linked!) * okay, I know a decent amount compared to the man on the Clapham omnibus, but not compared to a Windows developer