Q: Raw Python vs frameworks — which should I learn first?

Raw Python first. Frameworks second. The order is the unlock.

Frameworks-first is the classic mistake, and LangChain is where it usually happens: it's the most popular ecosystem, so most beginners start there. A framework hides the fundamentals behind its own abstractions, which means you can build things that work without understanding why they work. That feels like progress until something breaks in production, and you can't debug code you never understood. Interviewers can smell framework-only knowledge in one question.

So learn the fundamentals in raw Python first: API calls, context management, tool calling, RAG, the agentic loop. None of this needs a framework, and it's less code than you'd expect.

Then adopt frameworks from a position of strength, and adopt them gladly. Nobody is asking you to hand-roll agent loops forever. Once you know what LangChain, LangGraph, or the OpenAI Agents SDK are doing under the hood, every abstraction makes sense in minutes, and switching between frameworks takes days, not months.