[ben_w]

> The difference is whether or not you find computers interesting and enjoy understanding how they work.

I'm a stereotypical nerd, into learning for its own sake.

I can explain computers from the quantum mechanics of band gaps in semiconductors up to fudging objects into C and the basics of operating systems with pre-emptive multitasking, virtual memory, and copy-on-write as they were c. 2004.

Further up the stack it gets fuzzy (not that even these foundations are not; "basics" of OSes, I couldn't write one); e.g. SwiftUI is basically a magic box, and I find it a pain to work with as a result.

LLM output is easier to understand than SwiftUI, even if the LLM itself has much weirder things going on inside.

[jiveturkey]

So, can you tell me everything that happens after you type www.google.com<RET> into the browser? ;)

[ben_w]

Nope, but that was the example I had in mind when I chose my phrasing :)

I think I can describe the principles at work with DNS, but not all of how IP packets are actually routed; the physics of beamforming and QAM, but none of the protocol of WiFi; the basics of error correction codes, but only the basics and they're probably out of date; the basic ideas used in private key crypto but not all of HTTPS; I'd have to look up the OSI 7-layer model to remember all the layers; I understand older UI systems (I've even written some from scratch), but I'm unsure how much of current web browsers are using system widgets vs. it all being styled HTML; interrupts as they used to be, but not necessarily as they still are; my knowledge of JavaScript is basic; and my total knowledge of how certificate signing works is the conceptual level of it being an application of public-private key cryptography.

I have e.g. absolutely no idea why Chrome is famously a memory hog, and I've never learned how anything is scheduled between cores at the OS level.

[jimbokun]

Curious if anyone has turned answering this question into an entire book, because it could be a great read.