Put differently: you get good at what you actually do, not what you think you're doing.

If you're not coding anymore, but using AI tools, you're developing skills in using those AI tools, and your code abilities will atrophy unless exercised elsewhere.

I’ve also seen along those lines “there is no compression algorithm for experience” - a nice summary of the hn posts from today.

... or by textbooks, Stack Overflow, senior engineers, code review. How many engineers today got their start by building Minecraft mods or even MySpace?

I do think that these pieces sometimes smuggle in a nostalgic picture of how engineers "really" learn which has only ever been partly true.