151–160 of 178 posts
I have certainly noticed my stress skyrocket in this new mode of working. I was used to getting a lot done very quickly, with intense pockets of work followed downtime. Now it feels more like a steady stream of medium stress, and there is no opportunity to stop or drop the thread. I must admit, if this is the new way of doing software development (eg: not actually programming but working with LLMs) I am not going to…
Not sound harsh but that the people who solved problems with code just because they love coding disappears from problem-solving environments does sounds like a win-win for everyone involved. I've both been in situations where I loved coding the solution more than I want the problem solved, and I got in the way of people who just wanted the solution, and vice-versa where architect-astronauts are more interested in cod…
What LLM usage has changed is that there is no longer a deep dive into domain knowledge, the LLM goes off and does that. Then implementation time comes and again it's just handholding the drunk chatbot inside the codebase until it is done. The whole time my mind is barely engaged. Yes my expertise is required to guide it, I am constantly catching issues and problems it generates, but that's still not engaging the problem solving skillset I developed. It's just leveraging my experience.
>> I’m clearly much more productive now. I’m doing five things at once very effectively, switching between multiple agent sessions from morning to night. Joel Spolsky disagrees here: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2001/02/12/human-task-switche...
I rate Joel immensely, however, that post is 25 years old.
Meditation is great, but there might also be other options available when it comes to dealing with the effects of context switching. For me, I find the Pomodoro technique really effective, but there's a key caveat, which is that you try to focus on one thing at a time (which flies in the face of using multiple AI agents working on x number of things at the same time). Another angle to explore is how much of the proce…
>Another angle to explore is how much of the process of software development that we do manually can we automate, particularly the parts that still require human input (like code reviews). That may also help with reducing the cognitive load. Get your vibe coded software with zero human reviewers away from the public infrastructure.
- Unit tests - End to End testing with Cucumber and Puppeteer (or Playwright these days) - Code Coverage analysis - Lint and formatting checks - Tools like knit to remove unused code - Security checking tools like Synk and Socket - Size checking
If you look at what those tools do, they automate aspects of reviewing PRs. The question then becomes - what still gets done manually, and are there ways to automate that.
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The Mahasi method is quite different. You don't try to calm or control your mind. You observe and note your experiences as they're happening. Over time the calmness comes (and goes) but its not the goal. The goal is to see reality clearly. This clear seeing (which is where the word Vipassana comes from) leads to a change in the habit patterns that cause our stress and suffering.
You're right. This is a different technique. This is my simplification of the TM technique along with "japa" (repetition of a phrase) as is typically taught in the Brahmin scripture school mileu. Since the OP was about achieving flow state and focus, I thought this was relevant.
Worked great for me, when other techniques haven't. Just a good fit.
Much gratitude to you and u/phyzix5761. Sadly, I lost touch with that meditation group and I have been looking for something similar. Now I have your pointers.
You say programming used to be a meditative activity. Then why get overwhelmed by LLMs and meditate to calm down, when you can just write the code yourself at a healthier pace? Tools are supposed to be designed around humans, it’s not the human that has to adapt to the machine. In any case, meditating with an end to destress or to reach higher levels of productivity is missing the point of meditation.
> Tools are supposed to be designed around humans This is a common thing to say, but when during the development of human civilization has this actually been the case? Is agriculture designed around humans more than hunting/gathering? Is industrialized work more designed around humans than agrarian society? I don't mean to sound pessimistic or technocratic; quite the contrary. But I think we shouldn't project our des…
Meditation - «getting used to» A most elementary form of meditation, is getting used to placing your attention on a sensation and keeping it anchored there - even when other sensations or thoughts arise. Following the breath- place your awareness, your attention, on the sensation of air passing through your nostrils. Count one inbreath and outbreath cycle as «1», and count until 10 or 21. Decide before you start, how…
So attention is all we need?
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Loving code does not necessarily mean being an architecture astronaut.
The people I'm talking about literally like coding for the sake of coding (many have shared comments here on HN about it in the past too), which I think is the same group who now are loosing their "passion for software engineering" as the LLM takes over the typing/coding part, but still leaves the design/intention to the human. But yes I agree, one does not equal the other, but if one person has one of those characte…
Ironically I don't think software engineering has progressed much at all since vibe coding got fashionable. Real, meaningful engineering advances are being drowned out by the AI coding religion.
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It's all exertion, for both "meditation" and exercise. I'm convinced that meditation doesn't work for a lot of people because it has too much dogma about what it's supposed to be, and maybe those aspects are valid for certain pursuits, but it obscures the core principle. Take exercise as an example first. It's also a practice that is layered under heaps of nonsense and complexity or fluffed up with idealisms and syst…
Agree with you on exercise. But staring at a painting is to meditation what curls are to building your core. People all recommend the same type of meditation for a reason--so that you can close your eyes, focus on something, notice when your mind drifts, and bring the attention back. You didn't mention anything about awareness or noticing when you lose focus, so your advice seems to completely miss the point.
You can only tell people so much in words about how to maintain and train their attention. The better way is to learn by doing and it's easier for people to learn when it involves doing something agreeable to them rather than forcing them to do it the way you did. The original poster said they had tried the standard way many times even with help from a therapist and they didn't make any progress. That's why I felt it necessary to point out that there isn't just one dogmatic way to do it since your attention can and is applied to many different things and just like using your muscles and body to do many different physically demanding things you can train it in a variety of ways.