[throwaway2037]

    > Programmers laughed at the absurdity of left-pad[1] ("why use a dependency for 16 lines of code?")

I'm confused. Did they laugh, then still use it as a dependency? If not, did they reinvent the wheel or copy the 16 lines into their project? Right up until the day of the "NPM left-pad incident" tiny dependencies were working just fine.

Also, if you cannot tell the difference between code written by an LLM or a human, what is the difference? This whole post is starting to feel like people with very strong (gaterkeeper'ish) views on hi-fi stereo equipment, coffee, wine, ... and programming. Or should I say "code-as-craft" <cringe>?

[abxyz]

My comment isn't intended to pit "programmers" against "coders" or suggest that one is better than the other. I think the distinction is useful to help people understand why LLMs can be game-changing for some, and useless for others, because our attitudes towards programming/code can be so different.

If you go through and read the left-pad posts here on hn, you'll find people at both extremes: some fiercely defend left-pad as useful and worthwhile and think writing left-pad yourself is dumb-as-hell, and then at the other end you'll find some fiercely deride using left-pad as absurd when they could just write the code themselves. Here's a good thread to start with: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11348798

Personally, I'd rather hire a "coder" than a "programmer" and consider myself more "coder" than "programmer" :)