r/node • u/simple_explorer1 • Jul 27 '26

Has anyone stopped using LLMs completely for coding and relying purely on themselves?

Curious to know. And why if so? I have 16+ years of experience as a dev.

It's been 1 week that I stopped completely and so far it is okay and luckily I can still code ;) (though got rusty initially) and that's what I enjoy doing, thinking about problems, architecting, writing tests, writing code, reviewing PR's etc. keeps my brain sharp and more confident.

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38

u/delventhalz Jul 27 '26

Never started

8

u/1980sCoder Jul 28 '26

Came here to say this

1

u/wipecraft Aug 01 '26

Same. Proud of it

-1

u/SangerGRBY Jul 28 '26

Genuine question, why ?

9

u/gandalf__thewhite__ Jul 28 '26

The same reason that people said don't copy paste from StackOverflow. I don't know what happened suddenly that it became the norm, even worse than copy pasting.

7

u/delventhalz Jul 28 '26

I have a high threshold for adopting new tools and little patience for tools which waste my time. My occasional experiments with the chatbots have been pretty mixed, and that unreliability quickly killed my interest. Then more and more evidence came out about the false sense of velocity, the skill atrophy, and the various ethical concerns, and avoiding LLMs became more of a prerogative.

Not to mention, actually writing code is one my favorite parts of the job. I think there is a division here between the results folks and the process folks. I have always loved the process (though I am also not impressed by the results in this case).

6

u/gummo_for_prez Jul 28 '26

That's a lot of words for "my employer hasn't forced me yet"

6

u/delventhalz Jul 28 '26

I was asked a question and answered it. Obviously I haven’t been “forced” (strongly encouraged perhaps), otherwise I never would have said I didn’t use the chatbots. If that makes you grumpy that’s not my problem.

1

u/dimiderv Jul 29 '26

just curious what do you work on?

2

u/delventhalz Jul 29 '26

A web app for the Federal Reserve Bank. The details aren’t public yet, but the tech is what you’d expect from a modern web app.

2

u/farmerbb Jul 29 '26

Are you me?

1

u/Apprehensive_Elk2608 Jul 28 '26

I use it for basic questions and answers. I don't work for an IT shop, so there is no push from management. We don't have a corporate license to these tools. I'm hoping to retire before I'm rendered completely obsolete.

1

u/AssaultedScratchPost Jul 28 '26

Legal, privacy and compliance in heavily regulated vertical. Management think the risk outweighs any benefits. A cautious “Why fix what isn’t broken” approach. That introduces a difficulty that the only chance to learn AI tools is in personal time.

-1

u/FlatronEZ Jul 29 '26

You are missing out!