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> ChatGPT is, in technical terms, a 'bullshit generator'. This bs generator speeded up my coding by 10-20x. It's like a superpower... not talking about ChatGPT

> ChatGPT is, in technical terms, a 'bullshit generator'. This bs generator speeded up my coding by 10-20x. It's like a superpower... not talking about ChatGPT specifically but its stochastic parrot cousin (Copilot).

micromacrofoot 4y ago
I’ve worked with people that have produced worse bullshit
turkeygizzard 4y ago
GPT has been great for exploring new frameworks too. Copilot is amazing when I know what roughly what I'm doing, but GPT is like personalized framework / API documentation at times
- fintechie 4y ago
  yep, it's great for scaffolding and used as an interactive stackoverflow
- gremlinsinc 4y ago
  I want an openai window manager. I could leave my webcam on, it'll maybe regularly notify me its on, and hopefully block taking pictures, instead it'll basically just watch my eye movements and know which screen to focus on, and take voice prompts to find the window and subwindow i.e. chrome+hackernews tab, or vscode+filename. It'd basically be like vim but for outside the terminal and without memorizing shortcuts and it'd have a listening mode so I can just ask it questions whenever and it'll maybe even interface with copilot and give extra 'context' to things. This is what i want, basically a mini-version of "HER" to give me more super powers until it takes my job, lol.
stuckkeys 4y ago
Well said. I too use copilot and it has save me so much time. I can actually travel with ease and code with less stress. I love it.
mikeyjk 4y ago
How has it sped up your writing of software? It's not integrated into an IDE like GH co-pilot yet is it? I only find I reach for it for stuff like navigating some curly regex or forgetting date time format syntax for the millionth time. But I would be very keen to understand if I'm missing out.
ZephyrBlu 4y ago
Do you mean that you can build software 10-20x faster, or that you can literally write code 10-20x faster? I find it very hard to believe you can build software 10-20x faster with GPT, since the majority of building software isn't writing code. I'm also curious what you're programming that can be completely offloaded to GPT.
- alfalfasprout 4y ago
  Posted elsewhere, but this is what I suspect is happening. Folks that are primarily slapping together a lot of code are benefitting from ChatGPT. It's pretty useless for the other stuff except maybe boilerplate stuff for a design doc.
  - WalterSear 4y ago
    There's no language or coding environment that doesn't involve some level of boilerplate or repetition.
    - alfalfasprout 4y ago
      Of course. But coding is the easiest part of software engineering already.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
alfalfasprout 4y ago
I find this interesting. There's a few things ChatGPT has been useful for with coding but in general I've found it to produce outright incorrect answers and it can't really reason about higher level problems. Even for spark questions in scala it generates code w/ totally made up methods or code that doesn't work properly. Its writing style is also pretty tedious for many prompts. I've noticed "full stack" folks really enjoying ChatGPT but dedicated infra and ML folks (not working on toy problems) finding it less valuable. A good chunk of my work involves talking to folks, understanding requirements, putting together design docs, etc. vs. actual coding. I've found it not particularly valuable even for doc writing.
herpdyderp 4y ago
How does Copilot help you code faster? I've watched some coworkers use it but it appears to be more distraction than help, as they accept CoPilot suggestions and then have to rewrite it all anyway.
- lolinder 4y ago
  It helps me a ton, but I suspect that's because I disabled auto-suggest, so it only gives me a suggestion when I specifically ask. I know by now what kinds of problems it's good at, so I can selectively prompt it when I know I'm working on something that it will able to do faster. One example is when working on a front end form in Vue or React: if I have a bunch of variables in the component state and create a form tag, Copilot is great at creating all of the inputs with the correct bindings and input component types, so I'll usually prompt it after creating the first one by hand as an example. Since I'm selectively prompting it instead of just letting it suggest left and right, I also find it helpful to sometimes write out a quick comment explaining what it is that I want in more detail than the function name can provide, then prompt it on the next line after the comment. That often helps to get better results, though I'm still careful to read through everything.

micromacrofoot 4y ago

I’ve worked with people that have produced worse bullshit

turkeygizzard 4y ago

GPT has been great for exploring new frameworks too. Copilot is amazing when I know what roughly what I'm doing, but GPT is like personalized framework / API documentation at times

fintechie 4y ago
yep, it's great for scaffolding and used as an interactive stackoverflow
gremlinsinc 4y ago
I want an openai window manager. I could leave my webcam on, it'll maybe regularly notify me its on, and hopefully block taking pictures, instead it'll basically just watch my eye movements and know which screen to focus on, and take voice prompts to find the window and subwindow i.e. chrome+hackernews tab, or vscode+filename. It'd basically be like vim but for outside the terminal and without memorizing shortcuts and it'd have a listening mode so I can just ask it questions whenever and it'll maybe even interface with copilot and give extra 'context' to things. This is what i want, basically a mini-version of "HER" to give me more super powers until it takes my job, lol.

stuckkeys 4y ago

Well said. I too use copilot and it has save me so much time. I can actually travel with ease and code with less stress. I love it.

mikeyjk 4y ago

How has it sped up your writing of software? It's not integrated into an IDE like GH co-pilot yet is it? I only find I reach for it for stuff like navigating some curly regex or forgetting date time format syntax for the millionth time. But I would be very keen to understand if I'm missing out.

ZephyrBlu 4y ago

Do you mean that you can build software 10-20x faster, or that you can literally write code 10-20x faster? I find it very hard to believe you can build software 10-20x faster with GPT, since the majority of building software isn't writing code. I'm also curious what you're programming that can be completely offloaded to GPT.

alfalfasprout 4y ago
Posted elsewhere, but this is what I suspect is happening. Folks that are primarily slapping together a lot of code are benefitting from ChatGPT. It's pretty useless for the other stuff except maybe boilerplate stuff for a design doc.
- WalterSear 4y ago
  There's no language or coding environment that doesn't involve some level of boilerplate or repetition.
  - alfalfasprout 4y ago
    Of course. But coding is the easiest part of software engineering already.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

alfalfasprout 4y ago

I find this interesting. There's a few things ChatGPT has been useful for with coding but in general I've found it to produce outright incorrect answers and it can't really reason about higher level problems. Even for spark questions in scala it generates code w/ totally made up methods or code that doesn't work properly. Its writing style is also pretty tedious for many prompts. I've noticed "full stack" folks really enjoying ChatGPT but dedicated infra and ML folks (not working on toy problems) finding it less valuable. A good chunk of my work involves talking to folks, understanding requirements, putting together design docs, etc. vs. actual coding. I've found it not particularly valuable even for doc writing.

herpdyderp 4y ago

How does Copilot help you code faster? I've watched some coworkers use it but it appears to be more distraction than help, as they accept CoPilot suggestions and then have to rewrite it all anyway.

lolinder 4y ago
It helps me a ton, but I suspect that's because I disabled auto-suggest, so it only gives me a suggestion when I specifically ask. I know by now what kinds of problems it's good at, so I can selectively prompt it when I know I'm working on something that it will able to do faster. One example is when working on a front end form in Vue or React: if I have a bunch of variables in the component state and create a form tag, Copilot is great at creating all of the inputs with the correct bindings and input component types, so I'll usually prompt it after creating the first one by hand as an example. Since I'm selectively prompting it instead of just letting it suggest left and right, I also find it helpful to sometimes write out a quick comment explaining what it is that I want in more detail than the function name can provide, then prompt it on the next line after the comment. That often helps to get better results, though I'm still careful to read through everything.