Cognitive Debt: When Velocity Exceeds Comprehension

Re:Cognitive Debt: When Velocity Exceeds Comprehension by softwaredoug on Saturday February 28, 2026 @11:30AM (#47197244)

If I’m learning for the first time, I think it matters to hand code something. The struggle internalizes critical thinking. How else am I supposed to have “taste”? :)

I don’t know if this becomes prod code, but I often feel the need to create like a Jupyter notebook to create a solution step by step to ensure I understand.

Of course I don’t need to understand most silly things in my codebase. But some things I need to reason about carefully.

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Re:Cognitive Debt: When Velocity Exceeds Comprehension by Vexs on Saturday February 28, 2026 @12:05PM (#47197661)

Almost anything I write in Python I start in jupyter just so I can roll it around and see how it feels- which determines how I build it out and to some degree, how easy it is to fix issues later on.

With llm-first coding, this experience is lost

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Re:Cognitive Debt: When Velocity Exceeds Comprehension by softwaredoug on Saturday February 28, 2026 @01:28PM (#47198607)

Yeah I do that too. I also teach training with Jupyter notebooks (ironically about agents). I still find it invaluable.

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