> I'm not sure you're approaching this metaphor the right away. The point is that coding manually is great cognitive exercise which keeps the mind sharp for doing the beautiful stuff.

No, I'm challenging the metaphor. Working the trades isn't exercise - it's a grind that wears people out.

> Again, you're maybe being too literal and missing the point. No one is destroying their minds by coding. Exercise is good.

We actually have good evidence that the effects of heavy cognitive load are detrimental to both the brain and mental health. We know that overwork and stress are extremely damaging to both.

So reducing cognitive load in the workplace is an unambiguous good, and protects the brain and mind for the important parts of life, which are not in front of a screen.

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AlecSchueler 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> We actually have good evidence that the effects of heavy cognitive load are detrimental to both the brain and mental health. We know that overwork and stress are extremely damaging to both.

I don't think this is fair either, you're comparing "overwork and stress" to "work." It's like saying we have evidence that extreme physical stress is detrimental ergo it's "unambiguously" healthier to drive than to walk.

Maybe you could share your good evidence so we can see if normal coding tasks would fall under the umbrella of overwork and stress?

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closewith 5 days ago | parent [-]

We have plentiful evidence and studies on the effect of even moderate day-long cognitive work has on cognitive ability and on the effect of stress.

This is so well-founded that I do not have to provide individual sources - it is the current global accepted reality. I wouldn't provide sources for the effect of CO2 emissions on the climate or gravity, either.

However, the opposite is not true. If you have evidence that routine coding itself improves adult brain health or cognitive ability, please share RCTs or large longitudinal studies showing net cognitive gains under typical workloads.

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AlecSchueler 5 days ago | parent [-]

Again you're conflating things and are now also moving goalposts (overwork->moderate work) and asking me for very precise kinds of studies while refusing to even point towards the basis for your own claims. On top of this you're implying that I'm some kind of lunatic by associating my questions with climate denial.

It's clear that you're more interested in "winning" than actually have a reasonable discussion so goodbye. I've had less frustrating exchanges with leprechauns.

	▲	closewith 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Come on. We’ve had decades of occupational-health research on cognitive load, stress, and hours. The pattern is clear. Higher demands and longer hours raise depression risk. Lab and field work shows day-long cognitive tasks produce measurable fatigue, decision drift, and brain chemistry changes. These are universally accepted. And yet, you now want me to source individual studies on those effects in a HN thread? Yes, in this instance you are approaching flat-earth/climate-change-denial levels of discourse. Reducing cognitive load is an unambiguous good. If you think routine coding itself improves brain health or cognitive ability, produce the studies showing as you demanded from me, because that is a controversial claim. Or you can crash out of the conversation.

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darkwater 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> No, I'm challenging the metaphor. Working the trades isn't exercise - it's a grind that wears people out.

If your job is just grinding out code in a stressful and soul-crushing manner, the issue lies elsewhere. You will be soon either grinding out prompts to create software you don't even understand anymore or you will be replaced by an agent.

And by no way I'm implying you are part of the issue.

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closewith 5 days ago | parent | next [-]

> If your job is just grinding out code in a stressful and soul-crushing manner, the issue lies elsewhere.

The vast majority of developers are in or near this category. Most software developers never write code outside of education or employment and would avoid doing so if an AI provided the opportunity. Any opportunity to reduce cognitive load is welcome

I think you don't recognise how much of an outlier you are in believing that your work improves your cognitive abilities.

	▲	theshrike79 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Exactly, not every programmer is an artesan who hones their craft on and off the clock. Some people just write code for 8 hours, go home and never think about it on their free time.

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theshrike79 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

But LLMs can make the soul crushing part so much easier.

I need to add a FooController to an existing application, to store FooModels to the database. The controller needs the basic CRUD endpoints, etc.

I can spend a day doing it (crushing my soul) or I can just tell any Agentic LLM to do it and no something that doesn't crush my soul, like talk with the customer about how the FooModels will be used after storing.

"But it'll produce bad code!"

No it doesn't. It knows _exactly_ how to do a basic CRUD HTTP API controller in C#. It's not an art form, it's just rote typing and adding Attributes to functions.

Because it's an Agentic LLM, it'll go look at another controller and copy its structure (which is not standard globally, but this project has specific static attributes in every call).

Then I review the code, maybe add a few comments for actual humans, commit and push.

My soul remains uncrushed, client is happy when I delivered the feature on time and I have half the day off for other smaller tasks that would become technical debt otherwise.

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darkwater 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> My soul remains uncrushed, client is happy when I delivered the feature on time and I have half the day off for other smaller tasks that would become technical debt otherwise.

This is a very optimistic take. If you are in the type of company that just gives you boring code and tasks, you will required to use the other half-day to work on some other boring feature. This will not give us time to pay tech debt. Maybe it will do in the beginning when using AI agents has not been institutionalized yet, but once it has, you will be asked to churn out more "features"

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mattgreenrocks 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

If the mechanics of the work are “soul-crushing,” isn’t that the root cause, and the LLM is just a bandaid? I’m not saying every professional dev is enthused with all their tasks. But if you’re so eager to avoid parts of the job (however rote they are), then maybe it’s time for something new?

I can’t write this without feeling preachy, and I apologize for that. But I keep reading a profound lack of agency in comments like these.

	▲	theshrike79 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		It’s a necessary part of the job. Like no mechanic gets pleasure from an oil change or tire rotation. They’d rather figure out an issue with an old V8 But they do it because that’s a part of the job.