Convention over LLM (CoL) – A novel approach to coding

Our dependency or addiction on code generation LLMs like chatgpt and copilot didn't happen in a day, it's but natural that getting rid of that dependency is also going to be gradual - assuming you *do* want to get rid of it, that's the idea I'm trying to explore here.

- *The old school stack:* Wikipedia, google search and stack overflow were not only enough for coding, they helped us create programming wonders through the last decade like Notepad++, FileZilla, Gimp, Libreoffice Calc, etc. Most open source products that came before 2024 were created mostly with assistance of these three resources, not LLM. Why not revert to this time-tested convention again?

- *Snippets collection:* Before package managers and package ecosystems were fancy, the way of programmers was to "collect" reusable pieces of code and store them as snippets to be used later - pretty much like a curious kid collecting stamps and coins! This was such a wonderful convention, what happened to it? This could drastically reduce the need for an LLM for starting and prototyping a project today.

- *Look up documentation:* Looking up official docs can feel painful in that moment, and taking the shortcut of having an LLM churn up a quick solution also feels liberating in that moment. But in the longer term, the former approach is what makes the code future proof and latter only acquires hidden technical debt. This is a convention worth reverting back to.

- *Extend the deadline:* There is no need to hurry or rush through an app. Getting an app built right is more important than getting it done in a high-speed marathon, pressure-cooker like environment. Take the time to read docs, write unit test cases, devise a coding strategy and actually tame the code you write rather than having an LLM do it.

If you have any other ideas to reduce LLM dependency, do share them.