A conference talk applying Daniel Kahneman's 'Thinking Fast and Slow' framework to software development. It explores how developers unconsciously switch from deliberate System 2 thinking to automatic System 1 thinking due to mental fuel depletion, interruptions, and context switching. Key insights include: attention spans average 47 seconds per screen, it takes 25 minutes to regain focus after interruption, and 'okay code' is dangerous because it's invisible to tired reviewers. Practical strategies covered include Pomodoro technique, task batching, caffeine naps, and using tools like Reclaim.ai. The talk concludes by drawing a parallel between human context engineering and AI context engineering, arguing that providing AI agents with structured context packages (like dependencies) dramatically improves their performance — demonstrated by a 4x improvement in AI code contribution quality on an open source project.
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