[simula67]

As programmers, we need to know atleast one level below the abstractions to which we are programming to. For example, if you program in C you need to know a little bit of assembly, how objects are laid out in memory etc. This is how you write fast code and it helps with debugging too.

But if you are programming in C and notices that something goes wrong with the hardware, ( for example, an instruction does not do something that it is supposed to do ) you will have to ask for help since it is someone else's work that is faulty. Sounds reasonable ?

[nickpsecurity]

At least one level below. Hmm. That sounds more reasonable than full understanding. See my reply to nemo, though, for an alternative that I think is more reasonable. Basically, heuristics and simplified models.