I learned about computer architecture in my CS curriculum. It seems there’s great variance to these courses, so it’s hard to assume your experience is the same everywhere. Mine had a good deal of practical applications, prefaced by theory. I know people who went to school and didn’t learn some “basic” things, that their curriculum didn’t prioritize.

As time goes by the topics to focus also changes (should we have Machine Learning courses now?), so that’s to be expected.

This sort of gatekeeping is the kind of reason why a lot of people are put off by engineers - "oh, you don't know X? You're clearly not a software engineer".

There's a reason abstraction layers exist, perhaps you should try and figure out why your mental model of software does not account for that.

If only this was how it worked :(

From my experience a substantial fraction of programmers learn the absolute minimum to get a job.

Then they either learn on the job or ask the same questions over and over again, never learning. The latter being the really annoying people to work with.

You can be a perfectly good e.g. web developer without knowing any of that. It would be good to know how it works but you don’t need to go that deeply into it unless you’re interested in it. And if you are, or if you really do need to know it, this is a learning resource so you can do that

> How can you call yourself a programmer if you don't know the basics?

If you can write programs, then you're a programmer. That's it.

Some types of low level programming require you to know about CPU architectures and op codes, but certainly not all types of programming. You can be an excellent web dev without knowing how a CPU works, for example.

Some of the best programmers I know are self taught.

And pages like this are the exact great resources that you can learn from. :)

How many people who call themselves "programmers" went through the basics?