I miss thinking hard • Hacker News Board

Re: I miss thinking hard

#31

Post by thrw045 » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 4:42 AM UTC

topspin wrote: post #8

I'm using LLMs to code and I'm still thinking hard. I'm not doing it wrong: I think about design choices: risks, constraints, technical debt, alternatives, possibilities... I'm thinking as hard as I've ever done.

Reading this comment and other similar comments there's definitely a difference between people. Personally I agree and resonate a lot with the blog post, and I've always found designs of my programs to come sort of naturally. Usually the hard problems are the technical problems and then the design is figured out based on what's needed to control the program. I never had to think that hard about design.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#32

Post by gyomu » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 4:42 AM UTC

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 what you’re making the moment before you actually start making it. That’s when you think you know what you want to make. The process, which is an iterative one, is what leads you towards understanding what you actually want to make, whether you were aware of it or not at the beginning. Design is not merely about solving problems; it’s about discovering what the right problem to solve is and then solving it. Too often we fail not because we didn’t solve a problem well but because we solved the wrong problem.

When you skip the process of creation you trade the thing you could have learned to make for the simulacrum of the thing you thought you wanted to make. Being handed a baked and glazed artefact that approximates what you thought you wanted to make removes the very human element of discovery and learning that’s at the heart of any authentic practice of creation. Where you know everything about the thing you shaped into being from when it was just a lump of clay, you know nothing about the image of the thing you received for your penny from the vending machine."

Re: I miss thinking hard

#33

Post by tbmtbmtbmtbmtbm » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 4:43 AM UTC

Make sure you start every day with the type of confidence that would allow you to refer to yourself as an intellectual one-percenter

Re: I miss thinking hard

#34

Post by 9rx » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 4:43 AM UTC

gkoberger wrote: post #29

topspin wrote: post #8

I'm using LLMs to code and I'm still thinking hard. I'm not doing it wrong: I think about design choices: risks, constraints, technical debt, alternatives, possibilities... I'm thinking as hard as I've ever done.

I'd go as far as to say I think harder now – or at least quicker. I'm not wasting cycles on chores; I can focus on the bigger picture.

I've never felt more mental exhaustion than after a LLM coding session. I assume that is a result of it requiring me to think harder too.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#35

Post by renegade-otter » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 4:44 AM UTC

Dr_Birdbrain wrote: post #27

I think this problem existed before AI. At least in my current job, there is constant, unrelenting demand for fast results. “Multi-day deep thinking” sounds like an outrageous luxury, at least in my current job.

Which is a reason for software becoming worse across the board. Just look at Windows. The "go go go" culture is ruinous to products.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#36

Post by MarcelOlsz » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 4:45 AM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #30

paladin314159 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I echo this sentiment. Even though I'm having Claude Code write 100% of the code for a personal project as an experiment, the need for thinking hard is very present. In fact, since I don't need to do low-thinking tasks like writing boilerplate or repetitive tests, I find my thinking ratio is actually higher than when I write code normally.

And thinking of how to convey all of that to Claude without having to write whole books :)

tfw you start expressing your thoughts as code because its shorter instead

Re: I miss thinking hard

#37

Post by Aeolun » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 4:45 AM UTC

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.

I think that feeling is fairly common across the entire population. Play more tag, it’ll help.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#38

Post by Aeolun » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 4:46 AM UTC

donatj wrote: post #22

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #7

Dude, I know you touched on this but seriously. Just don't use AI then. It's not hard, it's your choice to use it or not. It's not even making you faster, so the pragmatism argument doesn't really work well! This is a totally self inflicted problem that you can undo any time you want.

Spoken like someone who doesn't have their company measuring their AI usage and regularly laying people off.

Need to be in the top 5% of AI users while staying in your budget of $50/month!

Re: I miss thinking hard

#39

Post by tayo42 » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 4:48 AM UTC

> I tried getting back in touch with physics, reading old textbooks. But that wasn’t successful either. It is hard to justify spending time and mental effort solving physics problems that aren’t relevant or state-of-the-art

I tried this with physics and philosophy. I think i want to do a mix of hard but meaningful. For academic fields like that its impossible for a regular person to do as a hobby. Might as well just do puzzles or something.

Re: I miss thinking hard

#40

Post by themafia » Wed, Feb 04, 2026, 4:49 AM UTC

> Yes, I blame AI for this.

Just don't use it. That's always an option. Perhaps your builder doesn't actually benefit from an unlimited runway detached from the cost of effort.