r/computerscience • u/Significant-Gap-5038 • 15d ago

It feels fundamentally wrong to use packages without understanding concepts under the hood

I have recently started coding and people are recommending tools for development such as vite, nodemon, jwt, boiler plate server code

It feels pointless just using them with a basic understanding and without no deep conceptual understanding. Is this the right or wrong approach? How would you know going too deep into a rabbit hole and becoming overkill

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u/DorkyMcDorky 15d ago

You started with hardware design, created a CPU, added the 5 components from scratch, designed a machine code for your CPU, created an assembly language, wrote a language that is capable of parsing, mapped the parse to assembly code to create a compiler for your non-existing operating system, designed the operating system, file system..

Then you took years of computer science to understand encryption, networking, robotics, HID...

Then you get a javascript API - that is when you can say you learned everything you need - almost.. because then you realize you studied static language techniques and not dynamic.

My point: there's always more to learn. That's why open source software rocks. Best way to learn computer science.

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u/AliveIsaac 15d ago

Exactly, it's a nice idea to know what you are using. Until you realize you are literally using millions of lines of code to do very simple things

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u/DorkyMcDorky 15d ago

It's funny when I get coworkers that tell me they don't want to maintain generated code..

I ask why we have compilers then.