alt Hacker NewsWould like to see a study of brain scans during flow, manual programming, compared to code review. If the conclusion is different parts of the brain are activated, then orchestration is a separate activity entirely. Reading code is not the same as writing code.
However, the code review study needs to compare between surface scanning and reviewing long enough to get over a theoretical slough of perspective: when you assume the coding chair and are in their frame, whether the brain shifts into a different cognitive mode.
Otherwise, just stamping "Looks good to me" is likely to lead to the same atrophy. There's no critical thought, even a self-summary of the change or active questioning.
Thoughtful, deliberate code review just plain takes longer. AI can help here a lot, although it still takes over the "get into review mode" process.
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Many firms are going to go bust because of dangerous assumptions they made re. Expectations of llm improvements.
And they will deserve it.
It is definitely not the same parts of a brain.
Code review alone is kind of like being able to understand a foreign language enough to read it, but not really understand it in flowing conversation or being able to speak it, much less construct a complex piece of literature.
Retention also suffers, as you will quickly forget what you just reviewed. What is the last PR you remember?
I absolutely feel like a "different" part of my mind is loaded when seriously engineering something myself vs vibecoding+reviewing. Even the reviewing is more annoying in the latter mental context.