[minkzilla]

That is really the most basic part of CS however. Anyone can fumble through with trial and error to get things to work. Design is the hard part, and you can trick yourself into thinking you designed something well just because it compiles and spits out what looks right.

[mattkrause]

"Does it compile" is indeed a low bar to clear, but you can also get fairly quick data on "how fast is it?" by benchmarking, and sometimes even "how well does it work?" (ML, compilers, etc).