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leekrasnowtoday at 1:56 PM0 repliesview on HN

I am a craftsman of fine puzzles made from wood and CNC machined metal. I use LLM in lots of ways to help on individual parts of bigger puzzle design projects, like for example to create custom puzzle solver software which can search through large sets of possible notching patterns on wooden sticks in order to find ones that meet some criteria or are optimized in whatever manner I find aesthetically pleasing.

I’ve been writing various single-purpose software tools of these sorts for decades. I would not want to go back to hand-writing them now that I can have agents (cursor, claude code, etc) lay down the algorithmic architecture that I vibe at them, now that I know how to “speak that language” and reliably get the software outcomes that I seek.

I find this similar to how I would not want to spend all day turning the crank handles on a manual milling machine when I can have a CNC mill do it, now that I know how to use various CAM systems well and have the proper equipment.

Given that my overall craft is not limited to just writing code or turning crank handles, I readily embrace any improvements of my workshop “technology stack” so that I can produce higher quality artwork.