Riding a bike with training wheels is also not a shame. If you need the training wheels, by all means feel free to use them.

But LLMs are training wheels being forced on everyone, including experienced developers and we are being gaslit that if we don't use them, we are getting behind. In reality, however, the only study up to date shows 19% decline in productivity for experienced devs using LLMs.

I don't mind folks using crutches if they help them. The cognitive decline and reasoning skills of people using LLMs is not yet studied well but preliminary results show its a thing. I gotta ask: why are you guys doing that to yourselves?

This is a lot about how I feel (I wrote a longer comment too). Training wheels are fine but at what time do the training wheels come off? But maybe there's a more apt metaphor, since people who have been riding bikes for awhile don't use training wheels.

It's also fine to use tire chains when you're going through icy roads, but you have to drive much slower and should take them off when it isn't icy. It's about knowing the environment and conditions. Maybe some people don't need chains in that environment because they have winter tires (experience in our metaphor?). Sure, you can drive faster with chains on an icy road than you can without, but you still have to drive slow and be far more alert than you would when driving on a summer road. It is all about context.

Some combination of cargo cult hype fomo mixed with laziness