Everyone told me I needed Python for AI. I didn't listen. Here's what happened. Let me be real with you. Every time I say "I'm building an AI agent," people assume I'm wrist-deep in Python virtual environments, pip dependencies, and a LangChain tutorial from 2023. And when I say "in Java?" — I get the look. You know the one. So I built it anyway. A fully functional AI agent. With tool use. With R
I am a first-year CS student and I recently made a decision that most people around me think is unnecessary — I am building a relational database storage engine from scratch in raw C++, with zero STL dependency. No std::vector. No std::string. No iostream. Nothing. The Problem With How I Was Learning For a long time I was writing code that worked but I had no idea why it worked. I used abstraction