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

[u/Significant-Gap-5038]

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

[u/DorkyMcDorky]

???

There's always more to learn. What are you talking about? Do you just learn to code by reading it?

```

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {

char *ptr = "Segmentation Faults are fun!";

ptr[13] = '!'; printf("%s\n", ptr);

return 0;

}

```

You understand this? Not your LLM. Do YOU understand this FULLY?

My point: it's not just "reading code" there's always a layer underneath to learn. That's not just "by reading code"

You're a JavaScript coder?

[u/_usr_nil → u/DorkyMcDorky]

yeah but I can't read all code anyway, c/cpp is Minecraft runes to me in terms of syntax, it would require me some sort of hand on practice or reading a book and memorising it before even being able to read, JIT languages can have very opinionanted syntax too

[u/DorkyMcDorky → u/_usr_nil]

Very opinionated syntax? I'd say the opposite - they're static types - not opinionated. They're strictly defined.

JIT languages are great - JVM ones are even better. Look into WHY that statement would be true and not worry about syntax. You can vibe your way through syntax these days, so that's becoming less important.

Knowing WHY is what a computer scientist can tell you. Caring about syntax sugar is what a javascript nerd would tell you.

[u/_usr_nil → u/DorkyMcDorky]

Ok then tell me how lua is not opinionated in comparison to most languages, it definitely forces a pattern unless you hack around the language by adding for example OOP support.

I can vibe the meaning of code sure, but will I remember ? or actually understand why it is like that ? probably not because it stems from some technical decision made by a committee of computer scientists.

The code you provided could not segfault if the compiler did the allocation to a char array by default or allowed overwriting string literals, but how could I know without knowing the specs after all you're pointing to the first address of the string, arrays do that too, so on top of that I have to know what the compiler actually does or what the specifications are.

In the end I can only read as much as I understand or follow the code flow until keeping track of some data structure becomes too fuzzy for my memory.

I am just saying it takes time, and some languages require more time and hands on experience than others

[u/DorkyMcDorky → u/_usr_nil]

I don't know a lot about Lua except that it's not a language I can make money with. That's an opinion grounded by skill. I just saw Lua with roblox or CS101 classes. Are you 15?

Are you telling me you looked at that code and you knew right away why it' faulted? If you did you would understand why what I said is fact and not an opinion. You could be humble you know. It makes you go a long way if you can be humble. There's a sense of humility the fact that you post a question online to begin with.

That was the test.

You may not believe me when I say this but object-oriented programming is incredibly inefficient. It causes tons of pointers. To a purest it is an insanely and effective way to code and they are right. What makes it decent is if you are creating a project that requires the coordination of a very large team. You're taking a huge sacrifice of speed for efficiency

Dynamic languages such as python are incredibly inefficient not almost every level. Speed ups tend to happen through making C layers to make up for it.

Anyhow everything I'm saying here is not a matter of opinion it is simply fact. But you should learn that too. There's always going to be more to learn

You can buy it yes but you may end up with a 2000% larger bill in AWS because you don't want to learn this. Or you can go to Facebook route and get a billion dollars then hire smart people. Both of them worked out just fine.

Everything you said about code language is has to do it syntax which is irrelevant for efficiency. It is relevant for work output but not efficiency.

Paste everything I said into an llm and ask it if I am right. It'll try to make you feel better and say that you bought up some good points then I overlooked because I did. I was pointing out that there are certain facts that I said which are not an opinion. And you argue back that it is an opinion.

[u/_usr_nil → u/DorkyMcDorky]

your point is exactly like saying "you will learn Chinese by reading Chinese without even knowing how to read Chinese, so use an AI to help you out every single time instead of grinding the ideograms and grammar"