Comment by lackoftactics

It’s on us as developers to use LLMs thoughtfully. They’re great accelerators, but they can also atrophy your skills if you outsource the thinking. I try to keep a deliberate balance: sometimes I switch autocomplete off and design from scratch; I keep Anki for fundamentals; I run micro‑katas to maintain muscle memory; and I have a “learning” VS Code profile that disables LLMs and autocomplete entirely.

As unfashionable as it sounds on hacker news, a hybrid workflow and some adaptation are necessary. In my case, the LLM boom actually pushed me to start a CS master’s (I’m a self‑taught dev with 10+ years of experience after a sociology BA) and dive into lower‑level topics, QMK flashing, homelab, discrete math. LLMs made it easier to digest new material and kept me curious. I was a bit burned out before; now I enjoy programming again and I’m filling gaps I didn’t know I had.

I often get down-voted on Hacker News for my take on AI, but maybe I am just one of the few exceptions who get a lot out of LLMs