Thread

1. QuantumNoodle · 1785956641 · focus · HN ↗

   A hobby is something you enjoy the process of doing, not just the end result. Everybody likes a clean home, but cleaning is rarely a hobby. LLMs expedite achieving the end result. Take from that what you will.

   1. bawolff · 1785958419 · focus · HN ↗

      I think part of it though is that LLMs (especially in novice hands) create code that is more difficult to review and has subtler bugs. Code review is (for many) the least fun part of programming.

      Like imagine if your hobby was cooking, but you hated the cleanup. If you buy a robot that automates the fun part at the cost of making twice the mess, that is not a good trade off no matter how many extra cookies you end up with.

      1. juleiie · 1785958971 · focus · HN ↗

         What you need from LLM is recipe making.

         Main course is this this and this, 1. Do this 2. Plug this 3. Run this.. step by step plan.

         So you get a precise top down construction plan. Then it’s easy to split the parts where the coding needs to be manual (smoothing walls) vs where it can be whateverz (laying concrete).

         LLMs reward seeing forest instead of trees.

         This way one person can implement a whole new hobby project instead of only writing a single specialized part in an existing project.

         Good luck making a grand strategy game in two months holidays without an LLM. Now you can.

         People focused on the trees will however lag behind as implementation details matter less and less.

         Yes manual touch is still needed in some parts of the construction process but architecting the whole thing is the most important in 2026.

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         ADHD wins over autism in the immediate future. It was balanced in the past for development to need both but now it’s a total hyperactive victory of general knowledge, master of none.

         Specialists will be fed to the model weights, generalists will inherit the world.

         1. _dwt · 1785965473 · focus · HN ↗

            I think we’re on opposite sides but this is the first time I’ve seen someone in the wild share my suspicions that the LLM conflict is part of some vast ADHD vs autism hyperwar. At one point I was collecting posts I found where LLM boosters explicitly mentioned how it interacted with their ADHD.

            1. bluefirebrand · 1785972100 · focus · HN ↗

               I'm pretty skeptical of people who are ADHD and claim to be getting boosted by LLMs.

               It's hell for my ADHD, personally. It's an infinite rabbit hole generator and distraction machine. I have to use browser extensions to filter out stuff like Stack Exchange suggestions for interesting topics, too. I have had to block Wikipedia in the past to avoid rabbit holes there

               I'm better now than I used to be but I am skeptical of people who claim to both be good at multi-tasking and also have ADHD. My experience with ADHD is that multi -tasking is not a strength, it's a sign of distraction

               1. jrapdx3 · 1785978030 · focus · HN ↗

                  > ... multi-tasking is not a strength, it's a sign of distraction

                  Interesting point of view from one who's been there. Intuitively the comment makes a lot of sense.

                  In a way human multitasking resembles how single-threaded computer programs work. That is, we focus on one task at a time but tasks can be interleaved to give an illusion of doing several tasks at the same time. Managing several tasks requires remembering the next step to do when leaving one task to attend to another.

                  That suggests ADHD people lose track of where they left off when performing several tasks. Distraction plays a role, but I think problematic working memory is the major issue. Among ADHD researchers there's a saying, "people with ADHD know what to do but don't do what they know." ADHD task performance may improve with proper treatment.

                  1. bluefirebrand · 1785983176 · focus · HN ↗

                     > That suggests ADHD people lose track of where they left off when performing several tasks

                     Not quite. At least not for me. My problem is hyperfocus. If I switch tasks I might go down a rabbit hole and forget to change back. It is similar to being distracted, except the distraction can still be legitimate work stuff. My focus is like a freight train, it's hard to change tracks

                     Which can seem like an attention problem when you're trying to change me from focused code mode to "jump on a call" mode

                     1. jrapdx3 · 1786002085 · focus · HN ↗

                        Yes, hyperfocus is indeed a frequent problem for people with ADHD. One version is getting overly involved in irrelevant details, due to interest or having difficulty pulling away. The latter takes much effort and a good measure of courage. Maybe "rabbit holes" are kind of like that.

                        For many with ADHD starting tasks is hard and resuming a task can be just as hard. Constant experience of "starting from scratch" is burdensome, and contributes to inertia and inefficiency. More than not, a tough problem to solve.

                        I've long thought disability associated with ADHD is generally underappreciated despite decades of study proving the point.

                        Self-observation isn't easy. I always considered it a sign of growth when people shared what they've seen.

                  2. madmask · 1786001344 · focus · HN ↗

                     Not diagnosed, on online “tests” I score just shy of the ADHD threshold, and I find myself in this. If only I properly remembered and agreed on what I wanted to do yesterday it would be fantastic. Even if I write it down and happen to remember to check the notes, it’s almost like I was a different person yesterday, todays priorities are all new

                     1. jrapdx3 · 1786003093 · focus · HN ↗

                        > Not diagnosed, on online “tests” I score just shy of the ADHD threshold, and I find myself in this.

                        Don't know the tests you refer to, but it's recognized that many adults have ADHD symptoms not quite meeting DSM-5 criteria for ADHD. It's called "subsyndromal" ADHD which causes as much disability and responds to treatment just as well as "full" ADHD cases. IOW it's absurd to regard someone with 6 symptoms as belonging in a different category vs. a person having "only" 5 symptoms. Anyway, ADHD is a condition that usually responds to treatment, no reason not to check into it.

                        1. [deleted] · 1786038467 · focus · HN ↗

                           [deleted]

                        2. madmask · 1786038774 · focus · HN ↗

                           Thanks, I know I could probably get a diagnosis and treatment for it. However, to be honest I kind of like it! I think it keeps me on a different path wrt most people, so until it becomes a serious problem (financially) I’ll keep riding the waves of focus and distraction ;)
               2. theshrike79 · 1786032748 · focus · HN ↗

                  For me it's a dopamine machine. I get my doses of lacking dopamine from completing things.

                  Agents let me complete things in parallel all the time.

                  They also let me build tools that manage all the attention-grabbing things in my life. Something I've been meaning to do "tomorrow" for a good decade.

                  I've already built custom notification tools for all the "I'll just quickly check hn/lobste.rs/tildes/whatever" so that they'll tell me if there's something actionable, closing down the rabbit hole for me. My email is pre-filtered by an agent that pings me if there's something urgent. My IRC client is custom-built for the specific way I use it etc etc.

            2. jrapdx3 · 1785974552 · focus · HN ↗

               The contest you described (people with ADHD vs. autism) would have an enormously negative effect. But there are reasons to think it's unlikely. FWIW at least 25% of ADHD adults manifest autistic traits. Hardly surprising, clinicians regard overlapping neurodevelopmental disorders as the rule and not the exception.

               An online community works when participants learn and share knowledge gained. Contests, with self or others, disrupt learning and sharing, hence by definition constitute "bad behavior". If it exists, the hyperwar you allude to will harm communities more than all LLMs combined could do.

            3. ivewonyoung · 1785974760 · focus · HN ↗

               >At one point I was collecting posts I found where LLM boosters explicitly mentioned how it interacted with their ADHD.

               Care to share it?

               1. _dwt · 1785979852 · focus · HN ↗

                  No, it felt too invasive and creepy so I abandoned the idea. Or my lack of follow-through is a sign that I’m actually on the other side of the “war”. Reader decides! But suffice it to say that it was, to me, a significant trend especially around the “Claude Code moment” back in February/March is this year.
            4. Der_Einzige · 1786007361 · focus · HN ↗

               Autism should not be framed as being "opposted" to ADHD. The correct axis is "Autistic" (Neurosis) as opposed to Psychosis. Opposite poles but with a little bit of horseshoe theory dynamics
         2. acdha · 1785973414 · focus · HN ↗

            > ADHD wins over autism in the immediate future. It was balanced in the past for development to need both but now it’s a total hyperactive victory of general knowledge, master of none.

            That’s an interesting framing. I’m not sure I agree with your strong conclusion but that’s mostly because I think there’s a second axis about maintenance – you can make a grand strategy game in a couple months but it’s harder to make it balanced, fun, and to keep shipping updates which players like. A prototype or hobby experiment doesn’t have that problem nearly as much and I think that’s where we see such bimodal reactions where some people think it’s a huge productivity boost and others see modest or even negative results.

         3. bitwize · 1785998129 · focus · HN ↗

            Funny you should mention autism. I'm of the belief that if I really wanted to, my autism could help me become a very effective AI-assisted programmer, because autistic communication traits that actual humans find annoying (and which most people hence train out of themselves), like infodumping and using precise language, are things AI actually loves and produces better results with.

            But I don't want to use AI to code, in large part because I iterate on ideas by working directly with code. Attempting to program through an LLM intermediary becomes like attempting to eat using soft silicone chopsticks.

         4. stevefan1999 · 1786022460 · focus · HN ↗

            > This way one person can implement a whole new hobby project instead of only writing a single specialized part in an existing project.

            I still do start from bottom up to refactor everything into workspace members and this way, parallelism is way easier

            > LLMs reward seeing forest instead of trees.

            Not just forest. LLMs reward seeing structures and designs, and it still requires a lot of creativity to design it well. I have to do a lot of architect works for that, like package layout, testing strategies (BDD vs TDD vs E2E), setting up access to platforms and digging out what strategies to apply...etc.

            > People focused on the trees will however lag behind as implementation details matter less and less.

            Trees like demonstrations and example code are even more important. This is because those are literally post-training materials for the LLMs

            > Specialists will be fed to the model weights

            I don't think so. New labor laws are certainly going to be introduced by the politicans to tackle this.

            > generalists will inherit the world.

            Now the problem is how far do you want to stretch the systemic thinking, and you also get burned out quicker.

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