[AdieuToLogic]

It's important to remember "Clarke's three laws"[0]:

  The laws are:

    1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that
       something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When
       he states that something is impossible, he is very
       probably wrong.
    2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is
       to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
    3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
       from magic.

Depending on one's background and when they entered this field, there exists a non-trivial probability that previous abstractions have become incorporated into accepted/expected practices. For example, at one point in computing history, it became expected that an Operating System with a general purpose file system is assumed to be in use.

The problem I think you are describing is the difficulty one experiences when entering the field now. The prerequisites in order to contribute are significant, if one assumes the need to intricately understand all abstractions in use.

While this situation can easily be overwhelming, I suggest an alternate path; embrace the abstractions until deeper understanding can be had.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarke's_three_laws

[js8]

A tangent, but Clarke was slightly wrong. Magic is not just indistinguishable, but it actually IS advanced technology.

In fantasy worlds, wizards spend years studying arcane phenomena, refining them into somewhat easily and reliably usable spells and artifacts, which can be used by general public. (Don't believe depictions of magic in video games, they simplify all the annoying little details.)

The above paragraph is actually true about our world, we just happen to call these people scientists and engineers, not wizards.

[KineticLensman]

Gandalf wasn’t a technologist.

(Edit) and his magic wasn’t remotely Vancean

[p_l]

He wasn't a technologist by the standards of his family, but it's somewhat implied in Silmarillion that the magics of Valar are intertwined with their understanding and knowledge of the world.

[KineticLensman]

Yes, but in the Legendarium, the Valar were innately ‘magical’ creatures created by a supreme being, not people who studied spells

[actionfromafar]

This is true, but the practical LLM wrangling seems less technological than I think any tech I have seen until now.

[znkr]

I worked in image processing for some time, it’s very similar

[lesserknowndan]

Whoooosh

[actionfromafar]

Subspace whoosh. Or more seriously, I think OP was going for a corollary to how stories about dragons aren’t false, they are more than true because they teach us the dragon can be slain. The same could be said for magicians - the stories are more than true because they tell us the complexity and arcana can be tamed. (Also note how many of the magic stories warn of unintended, unforeseen consequences resulting from unintended interactions between parts. (Sourcerers apprentice.) This should ring true for anyone in programming.)