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AI · October 24, 2025

Understanding LLM fundamentals without frameworks

I was using LLM frameworks everywhere but had no idea what was happening inside them. One day I needed to optimize something and realized I couldn't. Hard truth: I didn't understand the fundamentals, just which framework function to call. So I stripped everything away. No abstractions. Just Python, HTTP requests, and the OpenAI/Anthropic APIs. What I found was anticlimactic in the best way: there's almost nothing there. - "AI agents" are just functions the model tells you to call - "Memory" is literally just a list you append to and send back - "RAG" is search, concatenate to prompt,…

Understanding LLM fundamentals without frameworks launched on October 24, 2025 with 6 votes and more than 75% of that year's launches.

What it does

Learn AI development without frameworks. How ChatGPT, RAG, and AI agents actually work through 10 progressive modules. Just Python, APIs, and clarity. - jmedia65/learn-ai-right

Learn AI fundamentals without frameworks. Just Python, APIs, and clarity. When I started learning AI development, I found endless tutorials on various frameworks and libraries. But when something broke, I had no idea what was actually happening under the hood. I couldn't debug issues, optimize performance, or make informed architectural decisions. This course fills that gap. It teaches you what AI systems actually do, stripped of abstractions and marketing jargon. You'll learn the foundational patterns that all AI applications use - whether they admit it or not. Frameworks have their place. I use them. I like several of them. But jumping into a framework without understanding the…from github.com

In the maker’s words, at launch

I was using LLM frameworks everywhere but had no idea what was happening inside them. One day I needed to optimize something and realized I couldn't. Hard truth: I didn't understand the fundamentals, just which framework function to call. So I stripped everything away. No abstractions. Just Python, HTTP requests, and…

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