From Feynman Lectures on Computation (1970)

“Rather, computer science is like engineering; it is all about getting something to do something”

You do need to know the fundamentals to do engineering. And you do gain an appreciation when studying the fundamentals. But eventually, you are learning fundamentals to hack/build stuff 1, either physically or digitally. And if it works, it works.

  1. This is why the advice to “just try to hack stuff” inherently encompasses going and learning about the fundamentals too. But eventually you want to build something that is based on such information. This is why you can’t learn engineering just from reading theory. You have to go and solve problems and go and build something. ↩