I don't know, having done a lot of completely pointless time-wasting staring at hex dumps and assembly language in my youth was a pretty darned good lesson. I s

I don't know, having done a lot of completely pointless time-wasting staring at hex dumps and assembly language in my youth was a pretty darned good lesson. I say it's a worthwhile hobby to be a compiler. But your point stands. There is a period beyond which doing more than learning the fundamentals just becomes toil.