Thread

1. Arubis · 1789753677 · focus · HN ↗

   Yes, and: the most important time to use your brain isn't in the loop.

   That _is_ valuable, and will remain so, but the temptation to turn it off is there because the loop is good and getting better at what it does. Once you're in the loop, with the rare high-value exception of catching total mistakes nad redirecting, you're mostly choosing between similar-yet-reasonable options. This isn't so much right-vs-wrong as relativistic optimization. Letting the loop do the work will get you a mediocre result quickly, and that's usually fine.

   The most important time to use your brain is _before the prompt_. Once you engage with your LLM and agent, you start biasing yourself, and its reasonable suggestions constrain your visibility into other options, other worlds.

   First, use your brain. Then write the prompt.

   1. xendo · 1789754390 · focus · HN ↗

      I don't agree. I'm recently a huge believer in Programming as Theory Building. The software creation itself is the part that makes you understand what you are building. It's impossible to understand things before you start building them, initial prompt can help you explore, but the idea that after that you can lean back is ridiculous. Most or maybe even all successful software projects are still heavily relying on the best software engineers. That's why anthropic and others are still hiring SDEs.

      1. khuston · 1789755748 · focus · HN ↗

         Good designs tend to have simple mental models. Some of these mental models are generic and apply across many projects. Or are even written into standards. I wouldn’t be too dogmatic about impossibility of understanding before building. Sometimes knowledge beats experience, and having an intuition for when can save a lot of time.

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