It's 2000. Build failure was pretty much expected for any software. Probably a good idea to stay home and work through any problem. Nowadays you'll just fire up a build and go. And the build is probably finished before you're out of the door.
Yes. I never had problems with Linux itself and compiled kernels constantly. What I did have incessant problems with was compiling GNOME 1.2 and 1.4. SO MANY problems, just non-stop... it was always something. I learned a bit though, although not as much as I could have if I paid attention more.