> One particularly enthusiastic user of LLMs described having two modes: “shipping mode” and “learning mode,” with the former relying heavily on models and the

> One particularly enthusiastic user of LLMs described having two modes: “shipping mode” and “learning mode,” with the former relying heavily on models and the latter involving no LLMs, at least for code generation. Crazy that I agreed with the first half of the sentence and was totally thrown off by the end. To me, “learning mode” is when I want the LLM. I’m in a new domain and I might not even know what to google yet, what libraries exist, what key words or concepts are relevant. That’s where an LLM shines. I can see basic generic code that’s well explained and quickly get the gist of something new. Then there’s “shipping mode” where quality is my priority, and subtle sneaky bugs really ought to be avoided—the kind I encounter so often with ai written code.