Helpful rule of thumb: understand at least the level below the one you’re working on in good detail - that is, how it does what it does, not just what it can do

Helpful rule of thumb: understand at least the level below the one you’re working on in good detail - that is, how it does what it does, not just what it can do. It helps you understand the shape of what is possible, debugging becomes far easier and sooner or later you will probably have to fix it anyway, or live with horrible inelegant workaround at your target level of abstraction. I’ve never regretted going deeper; being able to keep going down all the way into the kernel is a superpower. But I’ve often regretted not going deeper earlier.