I am saying that the logical proposition in your comment is inarguably true. You’ve classified good engineers as those that know the things that make good engin

I am saying that the logical proposition in your comment is inarguably true. You’ve classified good engineers as those that know the things that make good engineers good and then stated that most all good engineers know these things. It sounds like you are now also saying you only work with good engineers and also that good acceptably applies to the set of engineers in the top 95th percentile. I don’t think my tautology comment contests anything you’ve said. I would say your experience seems to be biased. In my experience it’s usually a coin toss or two (top 50-25th percentile) wether an engineer just knows syntax or actually understands the machine they’re programming. But that’s just anecdotal and it doesn't seem super apropos to quibble over where that line is drawn at a population level in this thread.