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I miss thinking hard

jernesto.com

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Re: I miss thinking hard

#101

Post by keyle »

tired-turtle wrote: post #96
keyle wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should have been clearer. It was a pun, a take, a joke. I was referring to his day-to-day activity now, where he merges code, doesn't write hardly any code for the linux kernel. I didn't imply most of use can do half the thing he's done. That's not right.

> his day-to-day activity now, where he merges code But even then...don't you think his insight into and ability to verify a PR far exceeds that of most devs (LLM or not)? Most of us cannot (reasonably) aspire to be like him.

Like I said if you didn't know what you were doing before, you won't know what you're doing with today.

Agentic coding in general only amplify your ability (or disability).

You can totally learn how to build an OS and invest 5 years of your life doing so. The first version of Linux I'm sure was pretty shoddy. Same for a SCM.

I've been doing this for 30 years. At some point, your limit becomes how much time you're willing to invest in something.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#103

Post by novoreorx »

To be honest, I do not quite understand the author's point. If he believes that agentic coding or AI has negative impact on being a thinker, or prevent him from thinking critically, he can simply stop using them.

Why blame these tools if you can stop using them, and they won't have any effect on you?

In my case, my problem was often overthinking before starting to build anything. Vibe coding rescued me from that cycle. Just a few days ago, I used openclaw to build and launch a complete product via a Telegram chat. Now, I can act immediately rather than just recording an idea and potentially getting to it "someday later"

To me, that's evolutional. I am truly grateful for the advancement of AI technology and this new era. Ultimately, it is a tool you can choose to use or not, rather than something that prevents you from thinking more.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#105

Post by kamaal »

To me thinking hard involved the following steps-

1. Take a pen and paper.

2. Write down what we know.

3. Write down where we want to go.

4. Write down our methods of moving forward.

5. Make changes to 2, using 4, and see if we are getting closer to 3. And course correct based on that.

I still do it a lot. LLM's act as assist. Not as a wholesale replacement.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#106

Post by fallous »

helloplanets wrote: post #64
gyomu wrote: post #32

This March 2025 post from Aral Balkan stuck with me: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/114160190826192080 "Coding is like taking a lump of clay and slowly working it into the thing you want it to become. It is this process, and your intimacy with the medium and the materials you’re shaping, that teaches you about what you’re making – its qualities, tolerances, and limits – even as you make it. You know the least about wha…

And when programming with agentic tools, you need to actively push for the idea to not regress to the most obvious/average version. The amount of effort you need to expend on pushing the idea that deviates from the 'norm' (because it's novel), is actually comparable to the effort it takes to type something out by hand. Just two completely different types of effort. There's an upside to this sort of effort too, though…

You just described the burden of outsourcing programming.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#107

Post by belZaah »

boredtofears wrote: post #76
gyomu wrote: post #32

This March 2025 post from Aral Balkan stuck with me: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/114160190826192080 "Coding is like taking a lump of clay and slowly working it into the thing you want it to become. It is this process, and your intimacy with the medium and the materials you’re shaping, that teaches you about what you’re making – its qualities, tolerances, and limits – even as you make it. You know the least about wha…

I dunno, when you've made about 10,000 clay pots its kinda nice to skip to the end result, you're probably not going to learn a ton with clay pot #10,001. You can probably come up with some pretty interesting ideas for what you want the end result to look like from the onset. I find myself being able to reach for the things that my normal pragmatist code monkey self would consider out of scope - these are often not u…

Depends on the problem. If the complexity of what you are solving is in the business logic or, generally low, you are absolutely right. Manually coding a signup flow #875 is not my idea of fun either. But if the complexity is in the implementation, it’s different. Doing complex cryptography, doing performance optimization or near-hardware stuff is just a different class of problems.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#108

Post by goatlover »

ChaitanyaSai wrote: post #17

I miss the thrill of running through the semi-parched grasslands and the heady mix of terror triumph and trepidation as we close in on our meal for the week.

There are people who still hunt, fish and run. Some even climb without ropes. It would seem the feeling is missed.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#109

Post by rammy1234 »

Great article. Moment I finished reading this article, I thought of my time in solving a UI menu problem with lot of items in it and algorithm I came up with to solve for different screen sizes. It took solid 2 hrs of walking and thinking. I still remember how I was excited when I had the feeling of cracking the problem. Deep thinking is something everyone has it within and it varies how fast you can think. But we all got it with right environment and time we all got it in us. But thats long time ago. Now I always off load some thinking to AI. it comes up with options and you just have to steer it. By time it is getting better. Just ask it you know. But I feel like it is good old days to think deep by yourself. Now I have a partner in AI to think along with me. Great article.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#110

Post by [deleted] »

fallous wrote: post #106
helloplanets wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when programming with agentic tools, you need to actively push for the idea to not regress to the most obvious/average version. The amount of effort you need to expend on pushing the idea that deviates from the 'norm' (because it's novel), is actually comparable to the effort it takes to type something out by hand. Just two completely different types of effort. There's an upside to this sort of effort too, though…

You just described the burden of outsourcing programming.

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