It's more like writing the code is just the first step on a long road. You won't go anywhere at all if you don't take it, but if that's the only thing you do, all you did is the first step.

I have written plenty of code that's stuck on this first step in my life, including some that went to the very same LKML we're talking about here right now. Some of those things have already been independently written again by other people who actually managed to go further than that.