I really appreciate this take. It was able to capture something I couldn’t properly articulate. I am learning programming as a hobby and I am actively trying to avoid LLMs and other things I see as “cheating” because I want to actually learn how to program, not just copy and paste AI slop. Plus, the exercise of having that mental model of what you’re doing is what appeals to me since it’s forcing me to think in ways that I am not accustomed to thinking. That’s the appeal for me. Not the act of mashing a keyboard and hoping something usable comes out.