[calepayson]

Speaking as a junior, I’m happy to do this on my own (and do!).

Conversations like this are always well intentioned and friction truly is super useful to learning. But the ‘…’ in these conversations seems to always be implicating that we should inject friction.

There’s no need. I have peers who aren’t interested in learning at all. Adding friction to their process doesn’t force them to learn. Meanwhile adding friction to the process of my buddies who are avidly researching just sucks.

If your junior isn’t learning it likely has more to do with them just not being interested (which, hey, I get it) than some flaw in your process.

Start asking prospective hires what their favorite books are. It’s the easiest way to find folks who care.

[weakfish]

I’ll also make the observation that the extra time spent is very valuable if your objective solely is learning, but often the Business™ needs require something working ASAP

[oytis]

It's not that friction is always good for learning either though. If you ever prepared course materials, you know that it's important to reduce friction in the irrelevant parts, so that students don't get distracted and demotivated and time and energy is spent on what they need to learn.

So in principle Gen AI could accelerate learning with deliberate use, but it's hard for the instructor to guide that, especially for less motivated students

[sfpotter]

You're reading a lot into my ellipsis that isn't there. :-)

Please read it as: "who knows what you'll find if you take a stop by the library and just browse!"

[alwa]

I admire your attitude and the clarity of your thought.

It’s not as if today’s juniors won’t have their own hairy situations to struggle through, and I bet those struggles will be where they learn too. The problem space will present struggles enough: where’s the virtue in imposing them artificially?