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Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

ankursethi.com

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Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#81

Post by 1718627440 »

f311a wrote: post #31

This does not sound fun. It's better to work on your side projects with manual coding. You will learn more. Retyping things is inefficient for learning. It's like trying to retype calculus solutions — you don't learn from it. Even if there is an explanation of why the code is written in such a way, you did not come up with it, and you don't know alternative solutions. It is a practice for memorizing, not for building…

> you don't learn from it

Except that you do. Otherwise you could just sit in school or university and just listen and do nothing, but that way you just learn A LOT less, instead of taking down the lecture/lesson.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#82

Post by anymouse123456 »

Funny that there's another trending post titled, "Don't be a meat proxy," just above this proposal that we literally meat-proxy all the code.

Whenever I encounter an especially preposterous proposal like this one, I like to imagine a USMC Drill Instructor wandering into the open plan office and having an interaction something like this:

USMC Drill Instructor: "What the actual fuck are you doing?!"

Smelly Recruit: "Sir, I'm hand typing the LLM output. Sir!"

USMC Drill Instructor: "Are you fucking with me recruit?! I said I wanted a SASS App, not a typing tutor! Drop and give me 20!"

Smelly Recruit: "SIR, YES SIR!"

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#83

Post by baq »

1718627440 wrote: post #81
f311a wrote: post #31

This does not sound fun. It's better to work on your side projects with manual coding. You will learn more. Retyping things is inefficient for learning. It's like trying to retype calculus solutions — you don't learn from it. Even if there is an explanation of why the code is written in such a way, you did not come up with it, and you don't know alternative solutions. It is a practice for memorizing, not for building…

> you don't learn from it Except that you do. Otherwise you could just sit in school or university and just listen and do nothing, but that way you just learn A LOT less, instead of taking down the lecture/lesson.

Even better would be to rewrite it by hand with a pen.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#84

Post by yk »

Related, a writing advice I stole from Neal Stephenson is to write the first draft by hand. The thing is, there are a lot of small corrections where you kinda should change the text but nah, and if you already committed to copy the entire thing than you are already working at that sentence anyhow.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#85

Post by quietbritishjim »

1718627440 wrote: post #81
f311a wrote: post #31

This does not sound fun. It's better to work on your side projects with manual coding. You will learn more. Retyping things is inefficient for learning. It's like trying to retype calculus solutions — you don't learn from it. Even if there is an explanation of why the code is written in such a way, you did not come up with it, and you don't know alternative solutions. It is a practice for memorizing, not for building…

> you don't learn from it Except that you do. Otherwise you could just sit in school or university and just listen and do nothing, but that way you just learn A LOT less, instead of taking down the lecture/lesson.

Taking down the lesson/lecture does relatively little, you can do it on autopilot. If anything, it distracts from listening to the content. When I took computer science at university (mid naughties) we were given digital lecture notes anyway. (Mathematics lectures did have to be written down but there were no typed notes to start with so it was just out of necessity.) It's the exercises afterwards that are useful for learning. Or summarising notes in your words.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#86

Post by baq »

polymer8563 wrote: post #74
mexicocitinluez wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Retyping things is inefficient for learning. It's like trying to retype calculus solutions Says who? You're saying this unequivocally like you have research that supports this. I used to re-write the notes I took for studying and it was like night and day for how well I did on tests. IT also gave me a chance to tighten the information I was receiving. And it's exactly what's happening here.

OC out here denying the actual learning and reinforcement research because of vibes

It’s very common here on HN from the threads I’ve engaged in - everybody has an idea how learning works but it’s usually based on perceived personal experience and not actual research. I.e. you’re completely right with calling it vibe learning.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#87

Post by holtkam2 »

My rule is: I only let AI code for me, I don’t let it think for me.

Since writing is thinking, coding is thinking since coding is writing. That means any time I am not certain how I’m gonna implement some feature or bug fix, I have to code it myself because that’s the only way I can force myself to think through it. Only when I get to a point where I’m line “ok I know exactly what to do now- all that’s left to do is type it out” that’s when AI can be employed - essentially as a autocomplete.

This is only for projects where I will be held responsible for outcomes and must understand how it works. For hackathon / personal projects, I vibe away.

I also use AI to brainstorm at the outset of the task when I don’t know where to start at all.

Is this inefficient? My take: no. It’s maximally efficient. Over the long term it gives me an edge over any teammates who just vibe code everything because I actually, you know, understand how stuff works. I become the guy who can save the day at 3am when the team’s business critical app goes down. I become the guy that gets pulled into meetings so the suits can ask “is this possible?”. I see opportunities and problems before my teammates because I have a relationship with our code and system that they never took the time to develop or think about.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#89

Post by baq »

ozgrakkurt wrote: post #9

You are cooked if you can’t actually write better code than llm. Try reading some books or documentation

Frontier LLMs write better code at CRUD tasks than 95% of developers today. They’ll get to 95% of most niche coding domains by December and likely all coding tasks sometime next year; 99% better at all tasks by December 2028.

You may be correct now and it doesn’t matter one bit.

Re: Prevent cognitive debt by manually retyping LLM-generated code

#90

Post by sarreph »

f311a wrote: post #31

This does not sound fun. It's better to work on your side projects with manual coding. You will learn more. Retyping things is inefficient for learning. It's like trying to retype calculus solutions — you don't learn from it. Even if there is an explanation of why the code is written in such a way, you did not come up with it, and you don't know alternative solutions. It is a practice for memorizing, not for building…

When I was learning to code at college, by myself (I did a Business degree), I bought a book on iOS development[0]. This book mandated that you type all the examples out line-by-line. I thought the idea was a pretty silly one, but I stuck with it because I didn't know what I was doing and wanted to learn.

14 years later, as a software engineer, I still think about that book and the way I can trace back a lot of my initial improvements to its requirement that code got written line-by-line. I still maintain the habit of rote text copying as a way to pick up new tools and commands (i.e. copying documentation examples exactly into my editor), and also when people make an assertion like:

> It's like trying to retype calculus solutions — you don't learn from it.

Maybe not everyone learns that way, but I sure did!

[0] - https://www.amazon.co.uk/iPhone-iPad-Apps-Absolute-Beginners...

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