>productivity

I recently experienced some cognitive decline due to chronic health issues. This is unfortunate timing because I am shipping a game with online multiplayer for the first time. So "brain works properly" is kind of a basic job requirement! But you work with what you got...

Some day I have the energy to do programming "manually", but on many days, the difference between "tasks get done" and "I am just staring at the screen reading the same code over and over again" is "ask the LLM to do it."

So I have had to shift my identity from "the guy who does the thing" to "the guy who ensures the thing has been done."

That being said, I do check the diffs carefully. (I tried a more hands-off approach a few months ago, and that was a pretty bad idea.) And I've learned to make the diffs as small as possible: more digestible for me, and less room for the AI to go off the rails.

Nice bonus to small, well defined changes is that small, fast, cheap models can handle them. (Having a great time with Luna lately, even on Low reasoning effort, which I wasn't expecting at all.)

By checking the diffs carefully, you're showing how to use an LLM to add value instead of creating a 17000-line PR that nobody with any sense will read.

LLMs are really good at making it harder to ignore ignorant people, and you've demonstrated that you're NOT part of the problem.

My story is a bit similar. Recently, I broke my wrist due to a fall and have also been suffering from eye strain. I couldn’t spend much time “working” on screen as much as I need. And so I ask LLMs to do a major chunk of work, review and test the changes, course correct things to align with architecture that I’ve outlined and get things done as if I were working normally.