How LLM Primer teaches
LLM Primer teaches language models from first principles. Mathematics, code, and experiments show different parts of the same idea.
Begin with a question.
A lesson should help you answer something concrete. What does this operation compute? Why was it introduced? What changes when one assumption changes? Definitions and terminology serve that question.
Build the foundation where it is needed.
Technical ideas depend on earlier ideas. We name those prerequisites, explain the part required for the current task, and link to a deeper treatment when one exists. A missing foundation should be repairable; it should not quietly prevent the rest of the page from making sense.
Keep the reasoning visible.
Prose gives an idea meaning. Mathematics states it precisely. A diagram can expose its shape or movement. Code turns it into a process we can inspect. We show useful intermediate values and expected results before a framework hides the operation.
Move from guidance to independence.
Connect developments to durable ideas.
A new model, paper, benchmark, or engineering result matters when it changes what we can understand, build, or evaluate. We connect selected developments to the foundations behind them rather than asking you to follow every announcement.
Show the evidence and its limits.
Sources sit beside the claims they support. Author-reported results, independent evaluations, and our own reproduced experiments are labelled separately. We state material uncertainty, record corrections, and say when we have not verified a result ourselves.