Chapter 0: What you will learn

Summary

This book will give you the mental models and programming patterns you need to start using LLMs in your application's architecture immediately; regardless of the language you're coding in; and even if you've never worked with LLMs before.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the book, if everything goes well, you will be able to answer the following questions:

• Where do LLMs fit into my application's architecture?
• Which trade-offs should I be aware of when working with LLMs?
• What are the component parts of an AI agent?
• How can I use LLMs to build classifiers, summarizers, and translators?
• What is the simplest way to build a chatbot?
• What patterns can I use to build a coding harness like Claude Code?
• How do compliance, privacy, and regulations figure into LLMs?

Prerequisites

Some people find it surprising how few prerequisites are needed to start working with LLMs:

• You have basic programming knowledge.
• You know how to make an API call.
• You have some experience with chatbots like ChatGPT.

A few years of experience help, but are not required.

Things you DO NOT need to know

• You don't need to know math
• You don't need to know data science
• You don't need to know machine learning