>Again, I think this is a programmer centric way of looking at things: “how do I know it’s right if I can’t compile it”.

I would argue this would only be true for those without formal education. Writing your code on paper is very common in CS courses. You get used to not being able to compile it.

I think your latter comment is kind of analogous to people writing python (or any high-level language) without understanding assembly. I think maybe that reduces the mystery a bit?