One of the main reasons I fell in love with computers was determinism. I always felt weird seeing people get upset and curse at the C++ compiler. In my mind, the “computer” will always give you the same output for the same input. Therefore, you must be doing something wrong if you’re fighting the compiler. The answer to your problems is in the source code.

This is something LLMs took away from me. I can’t just look at the source code and figure out why a prompt didn’t produce the expected outcome. I have to go with my gut feeling, and with the little I know about LLMs.

On the other hand, LLMs have enabled me to code prototypes that I would have only dreamed about a few years ago.

Do you want your own fancy terminal emulator? Done. A couple of weekends’ worth of work.

How about your own Linux windowing system, running Firefox and a terminal? Done. A couple more weekends.

You always hated KiCad routing, but never had time to go through the code and change it to meet your requirements? No worries. A day’s work.

Of course, none of this is production quality, but it gets you started very fast. And I’m sure you can turn it into a solid, production-quality product in much less time than it would take without using an LLM.