Comment by i_love_retros

> What is coding for the sake of coding? I don't think anyone does that. Its about solving puzzles, using your brain, learning by doing, creating things- none of that happens when you use llm coding tools.

Why do you think that? I do regular ol' coding at my day job and have been vibe coding some side projects. They both require using my brain and both require my input for something to be created. They are different, though.

> Instead all you're doing is creating more cheap mediocre throwaway crap just because you can.

It probably is these things but since I'm just building stuff for myself, it hardly matters.

I've written a lot of code and a lot of that has been doing roughly the same thing. It's not a mental challenge; it's a chore. Sometimes it is really gratifying to code and try to figure stuff out. Often times it is not. So when it comes to building something in my free time, I'd prefer to avoid that sort of mental friction and banal tasks just to start working on the actual problem. More so than that, I'm building tools for myself to make my life easier so I can spend it more on something else.

I ride an electric bike with pedal assist. Does that mean I'm not really bicycling? Some might say yes and that it defeats the point. To me it ensures that I pick the bicycle more because it reduces friction to do so. I know that if I encounter a hill that the pedal assist will help me up it and thus I use it more and the net benefit outweighs the downsides. I think it's the same thing here.

I don't take pride in the work that an LLM does for me but I will happily benefit from it. It's a tool.