Comment by henry_bone
5 hours ago
It's simple enough: If you don't use it, you lose it.
The more you have, the more there is to lose and the longer it may take. But skills and knowledge fade, just as easily as fitness, or a tan.
It's an insidious rule too. Insidious in the sense that you may not realise you're not exercising a skill. You may think that your just doing it slightly differently, but you will adapt. In whatever way you made your life easier, that's where you'll pay, in strength, fluency, depth, whatever.
I don't know how much I agree, I've been in and out coding for different periods of my life.
At each point few days of practice brought me back where I was.
The key is, as you said, practice. I think it's fine to use AI to write code for you, as long as you occasionally force yourself to write code manually. Not only does it help you retain your skills, but it feels more satisfying than prompting, even if arduous.
A few days multiplied by the number of skills I once had translates to well over two months of lost time.