In a world where AI is changing the way we live, work and interact with our surroundings, mastering fundamental skills is even more important than ever before. Let me explain.

I am a software engineer. I love coming up with ideas, concepts, and solutions to problems, then crafting them.

It all started with the craft of writing code. It took years of grinding, learning from nasty bugs, and gaining a sense of mastery.

That sense of mastery allows me to quickly detect patterns, good and/or bad.

Your fundamental skills allow you to better navigate a chaotic situation

AI tools such as Claude, Cursor, and Codex have taken that craft away from developers and turned them into code reviewers.

No, writing code is not the only task software people do. As mentioned above, there's a whole set of activities, but writing code was the ultimate tool to bring the previous steps to life.

When AI tools like Claude/Cursor/Codex generate 100 words per second, you can only rely on your fundamental knowledge to identify the good from the bad patterns.

Your DataBase connections limit has been reached

While building a personal project, Claude Sonnet created a class as a wrapper to handle DB matters. It worked out of the box. I could CRUD the DataBase without looking at the code. Yes, I tabbed and blindly accepted its implementation. No harm was done to anyone. It's just a private/personal pet project. Was it thought? I started getting notifications from my DB provider that the connection limit threshold has been reached.

I prompted Claude to use a singleton pattern, which fixed the issue.

It may seem obvious to a lot of people, but without a fundamental understanding of the issue and the possible solutions, you might end up in an error loop with your AI-assistant.

(Please comment below with your experience in this matter)

Here is my main point: fundamental skills will help you fix high-level abstractions when issues occur, and they will occur:

• Mastering a programming language will help you understand frameworks built on top of it when things go sideways.
• Mastering engines' architectures will help you understand issues when they occur
• Mastering copywriting will allow you to masterfully use AI for writing
• Mastering fundamental programming concepts will make your collaboration with AI tools more productive.

You can apply this logic to other concepts in life.

How do you improve your fundamental skills

The answer is pretty simple: learn the lower level of any abstraction.

Here are some examples in computer programming:

• Learn CSS before you use TailwindCSS
• Learn JavaScript concepts before you use any JavaScript-based frameworks
• Learn how the engine works before using anything built on top of that engine.
• Write without AI-assisted technology and learn copywriting skills

For many years, while running @hackages, in our hiring process, I've always said the following:

If you were to travel for weeks in the desert by car with only one copilot. You have the choice between two people, one who knows how to drive the car and another who knows how the engine works and can drive. Which one will you pick?

How deep should you go in order to really have a fundamental knowledge of anything?

It depends on what your goals are.

Some people will develop a programming language from scratch to better understand the inner workings of languages.

Some people will rebuild a framework/library from scratch to better understand the hidden mechanism behind such technology.

At Hackages, We have a free course on rebuilding RXJS from scratch. It is an example of how deep you can go to better.

In an AI-first world, you might not have the time or patience to dig so deep, as tools like Claude/ChatGPT can quickly surface information without you understanding the inner workings of the matter.

If you feel stuck building fundamental knowledge, I feel you, but you're not alone.

Here is my advice:

• Build simple projects without any AI-assisted tools
• Learn design patterns and anti-design patterns
• Try rebuilding a tool such a JQuery/lodash or the equivalent in your preferred programming language
• Learn TDD, it will be your superpower while working with AI
• Break stuff and try to rebuild them from scratch
• Take an hour a day and iterate on the ideas mentioned above
• Keep asking yourself: how does this work?

There's no quick solution, but steady progress will get you there. On the other side of these experiences, you will engage with AI-assisted tools with renewed confidence in your ability to manage them. That's right, we are all becoming managers of these tools.

That's it for today.

My name is Davy. I'm building @hackages, an AI-assisted learning platform that allows anyone to build strong fundamental knowledge.

I promise myself to publish new articles every other day. Hopefully, I'll see you in a few days.

Please share with me your experience acquiring fundamental knowledge in any field.

PS: No AI was used to write this essay. It took me an hour with kids running around. Let's improve this every day