I started programming in BASIC on a Commodore VIC-20 when I was 7.
Nerd stuff isn't the *main* problem for me with Marlin. It seems easy enough to understand, but the fact that I don't know the basics makes troubleshooting almost impossible.
Here's a great example: with the TH3D LCD upgrade kit, you need to upload a modified Marlin firmware to your printer to enable the new screen. They include everything in the download package, all you need to do is edit the config to match your printer, compile it and upload the custom firmware to the printer. You're only supposed to need to change / enable 3 variables in Marlin for the Ender 5 Plus. According to the TH3D video install guide, you only need to un-comment the define statement for the Ender 5 Plus itself, another statement for the LCD change, and one more for the BLtouch. Sounds very simple.
Problem: with the latest TH3D unified firmware build, there IS no option in configuration.h for the BLtouch anymore. I found that a bit strange. The Ender 5 Plus COMES with a BLtouch, so I assumed maybe they moved that into another config file or something. I compile it anyway, and the compile works, but the firmware actually crashes when trying to print, with Octoprint reporting a bed levelling error. So I go back to Marlin, I manually add the line in the video I saw about the BLtouch, re-upload the firmware, same thing. Auto bed levelling appears broken. Also, the thing never centered itself properly with the new firmware. Home is now dead center to the BLtouch, NOT to the print head. It looks like this thing has NO idea what printer it is, so I suspect the variables for the Ender 5 Plus aren't being processed properly. I double checked to make sure I didn't make a typo in the configuration.h file, and I didn't.
This upgrade is suppose to be dead simple, and if I can't even figure this crap out, building my own will be impossible. Unless I can somehow pull the stock variables directly from my printer with commands, and then re-enter those into the Marlin code. I flashed back to the OEM firmware for now, and it obviously knows exactly what the BLtouch offsets are supposed to be. I guess this is all good preparation for the SKR 1.4 turbo install!!