It's the difference between constantly reviewing someone else's code and getting to write the code yourself.
replyThere's both deep satisfaction and deep value in having an understanding of the past, present, and notional future of the system (especially at scale). If I use agentic tools to do the actual coding, I never feel like I have as deep an understanding of the implementation, it's inherent assumptions or lessons learned. Over time, my understanding of the system atrophies badly enough that it becomes difficult to steer the LLM, instead of the other way around.
This is what makes those "unicorn"/great managers who both manage well AND maintain a clear understanding of the system over time so amazing.
Sounds like you could just use an autocomplete model for the exact same benefit.
replyAnd that's not a criticism, that's what I've come back to myself.
Early copilot was exactly what I wanted for a long time. A smarter autocomplete. Then they started taking it too far with just filling in the entire file.
reply> For me, writing the code (literally typing), shifting files around, renaming things is slow.
replyDid it ever occur to you that slowness is good because it gives you time to think?