[shermantanktop]

Paginated api is a great example. For me, I learned C from K&R and producing a.out files that would default and leave a core file in $HOME. If I wanted a list structure, I had to build it out of resizable arrays of pointers, etc.

I ended up years later at AWS, and while I was there I built internet-facing paginated APIs over resources which had a variety of backing stores, each of which was had some behavior I had reason about.

So I don’t doubt the difference between API builder and API user, I’ve been both. I think it’s less about what you are doing and more about how you do it (with curiosity about how things work, vs. as an incurious gluer).

That said, looking at the code inside MySQL is highly instructive for the curious; AWS doesn’t provide that warts-and-all visibility into their implementations, which cuts off the learning journey through the stack.