Okay, a bit of an introduction: I'm just a guy in his last year of a Computer Science Bachelor's degree. In some sense, I feel lost, but I shouldn't be. I have good grades, I had the opportunity to find an internship, and even got a return offer. While everyone is complaining about how bad the job market is for CS students, I think I've had a lot of luck and things sorted out for me.
That is not the main point of this article. The point is: I've always loved computer science (or whatever was related to computers) since I was a child. I'm from Italy, so I couldn't do any computer science at high school. I decided to just learn C on my own. It was fun and I had a very good time. I remember being in D&D sessions with my friends on Discord (because of COVID-19) while trying to understand pointers and matrices.
After that, I finally had the opportunity to study Computer Science at university. I'm very lucky because my sister went to a university in the UK, so I had the opportunity of doing my university in Dublin. Let's forget the context (like how it was living in Dublin alone, rent problems, flatmate problems, etc). First semester I was having a really good time with the Python course as an introduction to computing (a bit odd for me, having started with the "Italian approach" from C), but after 2 or 3 weeks I got comfortable with Python. Every week I was just devouring more and more exercises. It was like a game: developing was, and is, really fun.
Fast forward to the second semester: I was studying networks, having a bit of difficulty, and found out ChatGPT was out. Let me try it. It was amazing. Like, not "mind-blowing" amazing, but amazing compared to my expectations. So from then on, ChatGPT (or AI in general) started to be a really good friend of mine in this university journey.
So, what the fuck is the problem? Not really any "problem," just the fact that I have used a lot of AI and I maybe missed some core aspects (by excusing it with abstraction). I really want to take it slow, go over all these topics, and learn little by little, maybe by writing a post about it. If I didn't understand it, maybe someone else didn't either, and I can help someone who wants to know.
The dichotomy problem I was thinking about the last 3 or 4 weeks was essentially this: now that I'm in a world that moves really fast with AI and everyone is pushing that it will be the future (and I think it is the case), why should I lose time studying topics "better" that AI can ace for me? Like, I'm a pretty rational person; from my average point of view, it is not a good investment (i.e., 2 weeks ago I got curious how Floating Point number calculation worked. I spent 2h reading about it. Was it useful? Nah. Will I use it in the future? Nah. Did I like it? Yes, a lot. I think just because I'm a curious person). With this blog, I would like to share this and fill in all my gaps in knowledge.
The main downside is a bit of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) about AI. Like, this thing is time-consuming. Yes, I do use AI almost every day, but not as much as I can see on X or YouTube. Like, I still haven't tried the agentic part. I will, and I think it is going to be amazing. I will use it to make some side projects, but at least now that I'm still in university and I don't need to be as "productive" as possible, I will take it slow and learn some curious concepts at the cost of being a bit behind on which is the best agent, or which is the best way to do prompt engineering, etc.
Sorry for my bad writing, it's not my cup of tea, I know. You know I'll definitely use AI to fix it :).
This is not some kind of article against AI. In fact, I use it every day and I love it. But this blog is going to be my little corner where I prioritize knowledge against fast productivity. Basically an excuse to take time to fulfill my curiosity on how things work.
Philosophy of the blog? KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid. If something is too complex to KISS, we try and get a less complex version of it to study.
Thanks to Louie Mantia for his fantastic blog post about creating a website.
Thanks to Hello World! for his C playlist, which made me fall in love with programming during high school.
Thanks to Antirez and his Italian YouTube channel, which made me reflect on all those details I was missing about the subject I love.
Antirez once said that an expert stranded on a desert island should be able to rebuild their entire infrastructure from the ground up. So, maybe the next post will be on understanding how to build a very small (and probably bad) CPU. I might start with a high-level design and then go deeper. I only have a basic grasp of it right now, so I will read up on it and write as I learn.