[lelanthran]

> Apparently it's not obvious to everyone, but if you can't write code, you can't review it.

There's more to it than that: writing is thinking. If you stop writing code, you aren't thinking anymore.

Many argue that they're now thinking at a higher level (maybe they weren't before?), but, guess what, that high-level design can be done better by the LLM than by you anyway. It's only temporary.

[enraged_camel]

>> There's more to it than that: writing is thinking. If you stop writing code, you aren't thinking anymore.

Humans have been thinking long before writing was invented. Why is code special?

[lelanthran]

> Humans have been thinking long before writing was invented.

And look how poorly they did it until they invented writing.

> Why is code special?

You don't get better at thinking without doing. With code the "doing" part is writing.

In your view, it is reasonable to expect HS students to thoroughly read a book on trigonometry and then ace the exam? We know, from experience, that only by doing problems does the student actually learn. We also know that when you stop doing problems the facility atrophys.

Why is code different?

[satvikpendem]

> And look how poorly they did it until they invented writing.

How can you know how poorly they did it?

[lelanthran]

> How can you know how poorly they did it?

Their lack of progress. Humans existed in the same basic form for around 100k years before they finally invented agriculture, which led to some improvements, and then rapid progress once writing was invented.

[jacomoRodriguez]

Improvements or just new ways to be occupied and more work? It seems life without agriculture and the like was way simpler and chilled.

[ioseph]

Until winter.

[disgruntledphd2]

> then rapid progress once writing was invented.

While I mostly agree with this notion, given that all of our understanding of human progress historically comes from writing, there's a selection effect happening here.

Like, why do we talk about the Dark Ages? Because there was less writing, so obviously things were terrible.

[lelanthran]

> While I mostly agree with this notion, given that all of our understanding of human progress historically comes from writing, there's a selection effect happening here.

There's a bit of a selection bias there, because writing itself is used as a measurement of progress.

But, ignoring writing as a measurement of progress, we can pretty much see that for about 100k years the only tech were primitive tools.

Even after the domestication of wolves (about 40k years ago) there were no visible improvement in tech. After agriculture (10k-12k years ago, maybe?), there's visible progress in tech (tools), but not by much, and visible improvement in societies (also, not by much).

Enter writing - those civilisations that had more advanced writing progressed rapidly, and those that did not barely progressed at all, tech-wise.

Because not all civilisations progressed at the same rate, we can see quite clearly that writing is highly correlated[1] with progress.

---------------------

[1] While correlation does not imply causation, as the data mounts it lends more and more weight to the causation bit.

[palmotea]

>> And look how poorly they did it until they invented writing.

> How can you know how poorly they did it?

You could probably get some sense by comparing illiterate people to literate people.

[fuzztester]

>>Humans have been thinking long before writing was invented.

>And look how poorly they did it until they invented writing.

Yeah, look how poorly they did it until they invented writing.

[peers into the dim ancient past]

Sorry, my time-machine spectacles are on leave or on strike today.

And congrats on being a multi-millen(ium)arian, and a mind reader, who could both 1) exist so far back in the past, and 2) be able to know the thoughts of people who didn't write them down, because they didn't know writing.

/s

[dsego]

It's like math in school. I wasn't good at math in school because I thought that understanding the concepts was enough. But without actually putting pen to paper and drilling through math problems you quickly get lost. It's a skill issue.

[mewpmewp2]

I specifically liked math and physics because these were something I didn't have to memorize or repeat constantly. While other subjects felt forced rote memorization. Same with code though. Writing things down feels like a chore mostly, so I am personally glad AI is here.

[dsego]

I didn't mean rote memorization, which I agree is what other subjects were like, we used to say "campaign learning", because we studied the material just for the exams. But with math problems for me the trouble is that I didn't put in the work, I would see for example equations solved on the blackboard and it made perfect sense at the time, but because I would skip practicing at home, I would forget some of the steps and would get stuck.

[lelanthran]

> I specifically liked math and physics because these were something I didn't have to memorize or repeat constantly. While other subjects felt forced rote memorization. Same with code though. Writing things down feels like a chore mostly, so I am personally glad AI is here.

I am skeptical that you were able to get any good at Maths or Physics without drilling problems.

[ares623]

have you tried thinking for a long time without writing anything down?

[wseqyrku]

You will get to a point that you have to write it down so you don't forget but more importantly check if it even compiles.

[koolba]

Yes in three specific environments for varying durations. Lying down to sleep, showering and driving.

Each last for a different amount of time and you generally can’t write or even read anything. But in my personal experience, all three lead to solving the most difficult software problems.

[ares623]

Fair. But in all 3 did you very quickly write down the solution as soon as you were able?

[mewpmewp2]

My best thinking is when I am going for very long runs, when I write down the thought, my brain stops thinking about it, considers it done and moves on.

When writing, thoughts become forced and linear in my view as opposed to floating in a specific way from point to point. Like I lose the natural creativity.

Writing is about remembering or communicating, so it is summarizing the thoughts, but it is not thinking itself, it is more so thinking about how to communicate efficiently or how to make a note so you don't forget. It is not creativity for me.

Kind of imagine building an idea in your head while running and then you write down the summary of it.

[ares623]

I see, I'm the same too. Throughout my day my thoughts would be flying and zooming around. Some of them good, most of them not good or otherwise useless.

When I sit down to try and write them down, I blank out. Or the thoughts that I thought were good/useful, I second guess when writing them down. Perhaps it's just lack of practice on writing them down (I'm trying to use a typewriter to do so recently).

[t43562]

writing is a way to get your brain to put thoughts into a form that someone else will be able to reach the same understanding as yourself. The effort to explain oneself often leads to better understanding: Duck Debugging basically.

[danshipt]

Writing changed everything. You barely (if at all) can tell me what humans in the past were thinking without relying on some written artifact.

[mewpmewp2]

That is a joke, right? E.g. as in there was no writing therefore no evidence of people having had thoughts?

[mewpmewp2]

I think writing is summarizing your thoughts outside of thinking. Thinking happens at least for me before I write. I know what I want to do before I write, and writing is just one medium to get it out there. If there was a faster way, to get my thoughts there I would use that.

[palmotea]

> Thinking happens at least for me before I write. I know what I want to do before I write, and writing is just one medium to get it out there. If there was a faster way, to get my thoughts there I would use that.

A lot of people observe that their thoughts get better when they do the work to write them out. It's not just a straightforward encoding process (as maybe a software engineer would conceive of it).

[mewpmewp2]

Yes, it gets better, but not because of writing, it gets better because of building, playing it out and observing the results. The trial and error. It wouldn't matter whether I built via voice to command AI or wrote the code myself.

E.g. I iterate and see the architecture or the system work out, or I get other ideas because of something I don't like, etc.

[lelanthran]

> Yes, it gets better, but not because of writing, it gets better because of building, playing it out and observing the results. The trial and error. It wouldn't matter whether I built via voice to command AI or wrote the code myself.

This is a poor argument. The trial and error is the LLMs trial and error of your intention (ironically driven by you), not your trial and error.

It's like saying "It wouldn't matter if I instructed an LLM to solve my trigonometry problem or if I wrote the the solution myself; either way I'm learning trig".

> E.g. I iterate and see the architecture or the system work out, or I get other ideas because of something I don't like, etc.

What exactly are you needed for in this scenario, other than saying "make me $PRODUCT"? The LLm is going to be a lot better at architecture than you are. Your role is limited to A/B testing the result for human use.

[balder1991]

You’re not wrong, but there’s a nuance here. More often than not our thoughts fool us into thinking we have something clear when we have only a vague idea of what you want to do.

I kinda [wrote about this before](https://dielsonsales.github.io/2023/05/11/starting-a-new-blo...) but the takeaway is that writing forces you to structure your thoughts, giving them a final shape and enables you to notice flaws or gaps in your own thinking process. It’s impossible to do this without writing.

[mewpmewp2]

It would be good to have specific situations here I guess, otherwise it's quite abstract, and I'm not sure what to make of it.

As to your post, I think rather than writing it's the act of pressuring yourself to figure the thing out that is making you more knowledgeable about the thing.

You are putting it out publicly out there so you really want to be certain that you are correct, and therefore you do a lot of research.

If you wanted to be accurate and prove a point, the motivation mechanism could vary, but also the eventual communication mechanism could vary. It doesn't necessarily have to be in writing, it could be a live debate or simply something else you built. The writing or the product are end product, but the process of wanting to produce something is what made you research and to understand.

You could be writing to yourself into a Google Docs, and not care and you would not go deep to research since there's no incentive to be accurate.

E.g. I could be doing a home project whether hardware, software or DIY, that in order to produce this output I have to learn and think. Similar to as good set of words to communicate some idea. But also I could build some slop without thinking and I could produce slop writing without thinking, and about nothing special.