4 ms·

Writing code was never the only bottleneck, and I'm sure there is personal variation, but for me personally it has always been the dominant bottleneck. My back

by NiloCK 1y ago

Writing code was never the only bottleneck, and I'm sure there is personal variation, but for me personally it has always been the dominant bottleneck. My backspace and delete keys loom larger than the rest of my keyboard combined. Plodding through with meager fingers, I could always find fault faster than I could produce functionality. It was a constant, ego-depleting struggle to set aside encountered misgivings for the sake of maintaining forward progress on some feature or ticket. Now, given defined goals and architectural vision, which I've never been short of, the activation energy for producing large chunks of 'good enough' code to move projects forward is almost zero. Even my own oversized backspace is no match for the torrent. Again - personal variation - but I expect that I am easily 10x in both in ambition and in execution compared to a year ago.

cloverich 1y ago
It's interesting to think about, but LLMs are perhaps not impacting everyone, even at the same level, the same ways. I'm similarly more productive, and for a different reason. I've always struggled with task persistence when the task is easy and monotonous.... or something. Easy jobs, books, code, that still took a while to do, always took the longest, focus was impossible. Hard tasks, books, classes, etc, i always did the best at. nearly failed school from the easiest course; highest marks in the hardest ones. I've never gotten over this. That's now melted away. For the first time my mind feels free to think. Everything is moving almost as fast as i am thinking, Im far less bogged down in the slow parts, which the llm can do. I spend so much more time thinking, designing, architecting, etc. Distracting thoughts now turn into completed quality of life features, done on the side. I guess it rewards add, the real kind, in a way that the regular world understandably punishes. And it must free up mental space for me because i find i can now review others prs more quickly as well. I don't use llm for this, and don't have a great explanation for what is happening here. Anyways im not sure this is the same issue as yours, and so its interesting to think about what kinds of minds it's freeing, and what kinds its of less use to.

by NiloCK 1y ago

cloverich 1y ago

It's interesting to think about, but LLMs are perhaps not impacting everyone, even at the same level, the same ways. I'm similarly more productive, and for a different reason. I've always struggled with task persistence when the task is easy and monotonous.... or something. Easy jobs, books, code, that still took a while to do, always took the longest, focus was impossible. Hard tasks, books, classes, etc, i always did the best at. nearly failed school from the easiest course; highest marks in the hardest ones. I've never gotten over this. That's now melted away. For the first time my mind feels free to think. Everything is moving almost as fast as i am thinking, Im far less bogged down in the slow parts, which the llm can do. I spend so much more time thinking, designing, architecting, etc. Distracting thoughts now turn into completed quality of life features, done on the side. I guess it rewards add, the real kind, in a way that the regular world understandably punishes. And it must free up mental space for me because i find i can now review others prs more quickly as well. I don't use llm for this, and don't have a great explanation for what is happening here. Anyways im not sure this is the same issue as yours, and so its interesting to think about what kinds of minds it's freeing, and what kinds its of less use to.