> LLM coding is like reading a math textbook without trying to solve any of the problems. You get an overview, you get a sense of what it's about and most importantly you get a false sense of understanding.

Can be, but… well, the analogy can go wrong both ways.

This is what Brilliant.org and Duolingo sell themselves on: solve problems to learn.

Before I moved to Berlin in 2018, I had turned the whole Duolingo German tree gold more than once, when I arrived I was essentially tourist-level.

Brilliant.org, I did as much as I could before the questions got too hard (latter half of group theory, relativity, vector calculus, that kind of thing); I've looked at it again since then, and get the impressions the new questions they added were the same kind of thing that ultimately turned me off Duolingo, easier questions that teach little, padding out a progressions system that can only be worked through fast enough to learn anything if you pay a lot.

Code… even before LLMs, I've seen and I've worked with confident people with a false sense of understanding about the code they wrote. (Unfortunately for me, one of my weaknesses is the politics of navigating such people).