[Cthulhu_]

I suspect it's because you need to keep more things in your head yourself; after a while of coding by hand, it becomes more labor and doesn't cost as much brain power anymore. But when offloading the majority of that coding to an LLM, you're left with the higher level tasks of software engineering, you don't get the "breaks" while writing code anymore.

[lelanthran]

How often, in your life, did you write code without stopping, in the middle of writing, to go back and review assumptions that turned out to be wrong?

I'm not talking about "oh, this function is deprecated, have to use this other one, but more "this approach is wrong, maybe delete it all and try a different approach"?

Because IME an AI never discards an approach, they just continue adding band aids and conditional to make the wrong approach work.

[simonask]

The tactical process of writing the code is also when you discover the errors in your design.

Like, did we think waterfall suddenly works now just because typing can be automated? No.

[danielbln]

Who says you can't iterate on a design just because an LLM does the manual typing?

[simonask]

I meant to write “tactile”, not “tactical”, but missed it before the edit window expired.

Anecdotally, ask people who knit whether their brain is stimulated. Physically engaging with the thing you are making is part of the process that makes it actually good.

[danielbln]

Yet someone who knits can do so without spinning the yarn themselves, or shaving the sheep.