--- title: Nobody knows how the whole system works | daily.dev description: Modern software systems have grown so complex that no single person can understand them completely, from hardware interrupts to application logic. This reality... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/nobody-knows-how-the-whole-system-works-vwzsaomqp twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Nobody knows how the whole system works | daily.dev og:description: Modern software systems have grown so complex that no single person can understand them completely, from hardware interrupts to application logic. This reality... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/nobody-knows-how-the-whole-system-works-vwzsaomqp og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/VWzSaoMqP.png og:image:alt: Nobody knows how the whole system works og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Nobody knows how the whole system works **[Hacker News](https://daily.dev/sources/hn)** · 5 min read · 25 upvotes · 4 comments ## Summary Modern software systems have grown so complex that no single person can understand them completely, from hardware interrupts to application logic. This reality predates AI but is accelerating with LLM-assisted development. While frameworks that obscure underlying mechanisms ("magic") have always been controversial, the benefits of abstraction have historically outweighed the risks. The fundamental challenge isn't new—engineers have always specialized in specific layers while relying on abstractions for the rest—but AI is shifting where those boundaries lie and who needs to understand what. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Community discussion Top comments from developers on daily.dev. **@dmitriylezhnev** · 1 upvotes > I think that is a well-thought naming "nobody knows how the whole system works", a great metaphor for what is taking place today and will be taking place tomorrow. > > One of the commenters ask: Now that LLMs write my very code, what is the part that I’m supposed to master? > > The common saying nowadays says that you should focus not on the internals but on the outputs. You don't know how the phone system works, but you can ship one in days instead of months. > > So now it means that the whole business of selling/distributing/marketing must catch up to deliver the value faster? Is that what it... **@rubenalopes** · 0 upvotes > The fall of twitter as LinkedIn rise as social media platform had me chuckling 🤭 anyone serious knows what kind of “tech advice” is circulating on LinkedIn… **@daniel8000** · 0 upvotes > I just take my time to do my job correctly. Whole system is complex, but at least i understand what Im doing. > > Are you guys really forced to do cock-up? **@hardik15** · 0 upvotes > This is going to be increase a lot in future. No one know how and why LLMs thought or created like this. Also as LLMs have created the code people don't know about the details, for many of them if it's working they don't care about internals ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [You Are Here](https://daily.dev/posts/you-are-here-efuzybnep) · Reid Burke · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [You Are Here](https://daily.dev/posts/you-are-here-1ky4bq43r) · Marc Brooker · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [The 'Hidden' Costs of Great Abstractions](https://daily.dev/posts/the-hidden-costs-of-great-abstractions-u2wlkrp6a) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#ai](https://daily.dev/tags/ai), [#career](https://daily.dev/tags/career) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/nobody-knows-how-the-whole-system-works-vwzsaomqp) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Nobody knows how the whole system works","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/nobody-knows-how-the-whole-system-works-vwzsaomqp","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/nobody-knows-how-the-whole-system-works-vwzsaomqp"},"datePublished":"2026-02-09T14:13:27.300Z","dateModified":"2026-02-09T14:13:49.099Z","description":"Modern software systems have grown so complex that no single person can understand them completely, from hardware interrupts to application logic. 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You don’t know how the phone system works, but you can ship one in days instead of months.\nSo now it means that the whole business of selling/distributing/marketing must catch up to deliver the value faster? Is that what it actually is about?","datePublished":"2026-02-12T10:19:32.208Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/VWzSaoMqP#c-ecKCxpEJI","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Dmitriy Lezhnev","url":"https://daily.dev/dmitriylezhnev","image":"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a/ACg8ocJVN86Tdnt60xxFSGgjdPe3Un-PqVxs13Xgt_zigukW1JEuudg4=s96-c"},"interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"The fall of twitter as LinkedIn rise as social media platform had me chuckling 🤭 anyone serious knows what kind of “tech advice” is circulating on LinkedIn…","datePublished":"2026-02-20T12:20:31.218Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/VWzSaoMqP#c-hbJrWLieh","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Ruben A. Lopes","url":"https://daily.dev/rubenalopes","image":"https://avatars.githubusercontent.com/u/91846217?v=4"}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"I just take my time to do my job correctly. Whole system is complex, but at least i understand what Im doing.\nAre you guys really forced to do cock-up?","datePublished":"2026-02-21T16:23:54.034Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/VWzSaoMqP#c-yxjBXXyOU","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel","url":"https://daily.dev/daniel8000","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--F_RltCZK--/f_auto/v1738746891/avatars/avatar_SOwG1kJqf6HK6TkGmZH45"}},{"@type":"Comment","text":"This is going to be increase a lot in future. No one know how and why LLMs thought or created like this. Also as LLMs have created the code people don’t know about the details, for many of them if it’s working they don’t care about internals","datePublished":"2026-02-17T04:23:54.515Z","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/VWzSaoMqP#c-lRzU5ptNe","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Hardik","url":"https://daily.dev/hardik15","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--O0TOmw4y--/f_auto/v1715772965/public/noProfile"}}]} ```