I suspect a better measure of technical proficiency is the ability to shape the technology to reflect your own needs. That could happen at a much lower level o

I suspect a better measure of technical proficiency is the ability to shape the technology to reflect your own needs. That could happen at a much lower level on the Commodore 64 since it was a much simpler machine, yet that should not invalidate the proficiency of a JavaScript programmer simply because they work at a much higher level. Put in other terms, even those who absorbed the Commodore 64 programmer's guide didn't truly understand the machine. They may have known how to write software for it and even how to exploit the various chips, but that manual only provided surface level details about the electronics.