Understanding how all the components in a computer system work is important to being a good programmer, especially if you're doing work that is performance sens

Understanding how all the components in a computer system work is important to being a good programmer, especially if you're doing work that is performance sensitive. Memorizing a particular instruction set probably isn't important, but a good programmer should understand the basics of processor architecture and performance. If you know that, you can always learn whatever ISA details you need on the fly, in the relatively rare case that you need them.