I use Claude and not crapping on it or the boosters, but most of the people who I've encountered in real life who really gush about it, are either semi-technical, and who struggle in some way when coding. Non technical CEO of small startup I was at, manager who didn't go to college, etc.

It's a cool tool! Just am tired of being treated like anti AI because I don't outsource my brain to it, or gush over their DIY UI demos.

Yeah it’s just a LLM, able to do text transformations based on what latent factors it has captured in the training stage. But programming is not text manipulation, just like writing is not only putting words on paper and music is not merely producing sounds.

Anyone can sat before a piano and start hitting keys. And someone can rig up some apparatus that highlight which keys to hit at precise times in order to play Moonlight Sonata. But no one will call those people pianist. Sure a good pianist can use such apparatus to learn to play a piece. But he may also not buy such thing and just use a music sheet.

>Is there a first step in programming? If there is, that would be thinking

I'd argue that a first step (regardless of field) is either a necessity or curiosity.

Thinking comes later. (And to be honest I can't really think of it as a "step", simply because this is a process).