This perspective can only come from someone who started programming in the pre-LLM era. Back in those days the code didn’t write itself and you had to think rea

This perspective can only come from someone who started programming in the pre-LLM era. Back in those days the code didn’t write itself and you had to think really hard about shit and bang your head in the wall. This literally requires strong and coherent mental models, because there’s no other way… there were no shortcuts. Post-LLM era, you can use a shortcut to get a representation of what something could be. However I see a lot of folks shipping that representation straight to prod. By comparison, the mental models created are weaker and have less integrity. You might be able to feel that something is off, but you lack the faculties to express or explain why.