I just spent some time searching for m4 opinions on HN and it's more like a love-hate than hate-hate.
It looks like if you dive head first into learning autotools, then m4 is going to look like nuisance.
But if you allocate time to learn m4 for what it is, instead of just something you have to put up with as part of your autotools adventure, then you'll hate m4.
m4 is the only (or one of a very few) well-known general-purpose language-agnostic macro processor I know of.
That only proves GP's point. What the author of the blog-post did in 3 months does not meet the expectations of a CS program from even a half decent school (think bottom of the top-100 list).
You know what also doesn't meet those expectations? a degree from a diploma mill.
So what you're saying is that, since outside of academia no one cares about quality of education, employers don't mind (or maybe shouldn't mind, according to your opinion) degrees from diploma mills.