“Learn the Fundamentals”

I graduated in Computer Science in the early 2000s.

When I took a Databases class, NoSQL didn't exist.
When I took a Computer Graphics class, OpenGL didn't support shaders.
When I took a Computer Security class, no one knew about botnets yet.
When I took an Artificial Intelligence class, deep learning didn't exist.
When I took a Programming Languages class, reactive programming wasn't a «thing».
When I took a Distributed Systems class, there was no Big Data or cloud computing.
When I took an Operating Systems class, hypervisors didn't exist (in PCs at least).
When I took a Networking class, there was no wifi in my laptop or internet in my phone.

Learn the fundamentals. The rest will change anyway.

— “Learn the Fundamentals” by Hisham H. Muhammad

I've felt this very true to my experience, and yet, more than 8 years ago, when people were giving me this very same advice, I was not believing them (very often, not always, luckily).

I realize this now, and with it, the irony of the fact that this must be true to so many people. I wished I learnt some more fundamentals, and I wished I studied them better. I am doing it now, from time to time, re-learning the fundamentals while pointing a condescending eye to my past-self.

Hisham H. Muhammad is a PhD from the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, who is using his homegrown Linux distro, typing in Dvorak into its own text editor (cit.)