4 ms·

for me chatgpt is 10x more efficient than searching stack overflow. I use it daily and helps speed my dev so much. It's super helpful for tedious stuff like dat

for me chatgpt is 10x more efficient than searching stack overflow. I use it daily and helps speed my dev so much. It's super helpful for tedious stuff like date transforms (pst to utc) or random array filters (ex filter array of objects on this field and remove duplicates) etc. My most recent query from yesterday ways "iterate over a nodejs array, the array has 10 or less elements. The increment should be in chunks of two. Stop when the index is bigger than 10, or when there are no more elements" I can figure this stuff out myself too, but with chatgpt, I can query it and come back in 20 seconds and use whatever the output is. 95% of the time is correct, and the rest I can just quickly fix it myself. Plus i can ask follow on questions and refine it even more. This stuff would have taken me 5+ mins looking over stack overflow and then coding it and testing it. Plus ChatGpt handles edge case so I don't have to worry about them. The efficiency is much much better than SO. I can't imagine going back to Google or SO for any coding questions. I only wish they kept the service up more during the day time. It's available in the morning or at night, but most afternoons it's a hit or miss.

sidlls 4y ago
The response time is longer than it would have taken you to just write the code.
- maze-le 4y ago
  Even writing the statement in natural language takes longer than writing the code...
- creek567 4y ago
  the point is not the speed, but the brainspace. the brainspace I would have used on this task would have tired me out quicker and prevented me from making progress on other tasks. ChatGPT is literally 0 brain space for these simple tasks. If you had to code it you're at least thinking about edge cases etc. Plus there's 0% chance it would take you 20 seconds for 10+ tasks of these per day. if you're coding at 50 wmp these would take you at least 1 minute to type out, let alone implement correctly. by your logic you should never use google or SO because it's quicker to just implement it instead of opening a browser, typing the question, looking at responses etc.
  - sidlls 4y ago
    Iteration over an array is literally trivial and takes next to no time as long as one is familiar with the language constructs required. It should take about as much brain space as single digit addition: sure one could use a calculator, but he shouldn’t have to and going for it is a waste of time. If I caught one of the other engineers on my team wasting time on google or SO looking up such basic stuff I’d question his career choice.
    - creek567 4y ago
      i'm not asking how to do a for loop lol the queries are more complex, I was just providing an example for this thread since many of you are struggling to understand why chatgpt is useful. you seem to have an emotional reaction against chatgpt, or are just really dense. that's okay for you. but I hope your team knows that you're limiting their career growth by having you as a manager.
      - sidlls 4y ago
        The examples you gave were ones you said you used specifically: iteration over an array and filtering being two. These are trivial tasks that you, as a programmer, shouldn’t need to search for in your day-to-day. This isn’t an emotional response to chatgpt, it’s questioning the abilities of anyone who would try to use it for the trivial tasks you put it to use for. I don’t know that I could trust code you submit in a PR: I sense I’d have to give it extra scrutiny, the same way I would the code produced by the AI itself.
  - Volundr 4y ago
    > If you had to code it you're at least thinking about edge cases etc. If you didn't code it you REALLY need to be thinking about edge cases, etc. ChatGPT (or stack overflow for that matter) makes tons of mistakes, at least as much as your average human. Personally I find it harder to validate the behavior of code I didn't write than code I've gone through the creation process of myself.
    - 4y ago
kklisura 4y ago
Sorry for asking, but I just have to: for how long have you been programming and specifically in nodejs/javascript? I'm asking because your query IS THE most basic programming task and, imho, nothing "to figure out". It should take 20 seconds to write that code.
- zamnos 4y ago
  For your main language, you should definitely be able to do that off the top of your head, but in today's polyglot programming world? How many different languages can you do that in, in 20 seconds, without looking it up? Personally, I think I can only do it in Python and C off the top of my head without looking. I'd have to look up how to do it, idiomatically, in C++, Rust, Go, Perl, PHP, and Javascript.
- creek567 4y ago
  I've been coding for 10+ years. If you're doing any serious coding day to day, you're likely doing these type of queries 10+ per day or more so over the day it saves a ton of time. You're not going to code this many functions bug free from your first try. If anything, you'll spend at least 30 secons on catching edge cases or off by one errors. I'm not going to memorize random functions off the top of my head and I'm not going to waste brainspace on something I can use chatgpt really quickly and move on with others tasks more specific to my domain. I'd rather focus and use energy on business logic + the part that are more specific to my domain than generic functions I can ask chatgpt and come back in a little bit.
- varispeed 4y ago
  Thinking about this kind of low level stuff sometimes is exhausting. Of course it is basic, but since it is basic why should I even think about it. It's like trying to bake a pizza and having to think how to grow tomatoes. If ChatGPT can free you up from thinking about the basics, you can channel your energy into some more advanced concepts.
varispeed 4y ago
This and also co-pilot. I was very sceptical about this tool, but installed it as a plugin for VSCode. Sometimes I feel it reads my mind. It's of course wrong many times, but the way it autocompletes code means, I am no longer hesitant writing a lot of code just to try things out, as it is much more enjoyable - this combined with ChatGPT really feels like having a superpower.

sidlls 4y ago

The response time is longer than it would have taken you to just write the code.

maze-le 4y ago
Even writing the statement in natural language takes longer than writing the code...
creek567 4y ago
the point is not the speed, but the brainspace. the brainspace I would have used on this task would have tired me out quicker and prevented me from making progress on other tasks. ChatGPT is literally 0 brain space for these simple tasks. If you had to code it you're at least thinking about edge cases etc. Plus there's 0% chance it would take you 20 seconds for 10+ tasks of these per day. if you're coding at 50 wmp these would take you at least 1 minute to type out, let alone implement correctly. by your logic you should never use google or SO because it's quicker to just implement it instead of opening a browser, typing the question, looking at responses etc.
- sidlls 4y ago
  Iteration over an array is literally trivial and takes next to no time as long as one is familiar with the language constructs required. It should take about as much brain space as single digit addition: sure one could use a calculator, but he shouldn’t have to and going for it is a waste of time. If I caught one of the other engineers on my team wasting time on google or SO looking up such basic stuff I’d question his career choice.
  - creek567 4y ago
    i'm not asking how to do a for loop lol the queries are more complex, I was just providing an example for this thread since many of you are struggling to understand why chatgpt is useful. you seem to have an emotional reaction against chatgpt, or are just really dense. that's okay for you. but I hope your team knows that you're limiting their career growth by having you as a manager.
    - sidlls 4y ago
      The examples you gave were ones you said you used specifically: iteration over an array and filtering being two. These are trivial tasks that you, as a programmer, shouldn’t need to search for in your day-to-day. This isn’t an emotional response to chatgpt, it’s questioning the abilities of anyone who would try to use it for the trivial tasks you put it to use for. I don’t know that I could trust code you submit in a PR: I sense I’d have to give it extra scrutiny, the same way I would the code produced by the AI itself.
- Volundr 4y ago
  > If you had to code it you're at least thinking about edge cases etc. If you didn't code it you REALLY need to be thinking about edge cases, etc. ChatGPT (or stack overflow for that matter) makes tons of mistakes, at least as much as your average human. Personally I find it harder to validate the behavior of code I didn't write than code I've gone through the creation process of myself.
  - 4y ago

kklisura 4y ago

Sorry for asking, but I just have to: for how long have you been programming and specifically in nodejs/javascript? I'm asking because your query IS THE most basic programming task and, imho, nothing "to figure out". It should take 20 seconds to write that code.

zamnos 4y ago
For your main language, you should definitely be able to do that off the top of your head, but in today's polyglot programming world? How many different languages can you do that in, in 20 seconds, without looking it up? Personally, I think I can only do it in Python and C off the top of my head without looking. I'd have to look up how to do it, idiomatically, in C++, Rust, Go, Perl, PHP, and Javascript.
creek567 4y ago
I've been coding for 10+ years. If you're doing any serious coding day to day, you're likely doing these type of queries 10+ per day or more so over the day it saves a ton of time. You're not going to code this many functions bug free from your first try. If anything, you'll spend at least 30 secons on catching edge cases or off by one errors. I'm not going to memorize random functions off the top of my head and I'm not going to waste brainspace on something I can use chatgpt really quickly and move on with others tasks more specific to my domain. I'd rather focus and use energy on business logic + the part that are more specific to my domain than generic functions I can ask chatgpt and come back in a little bit.
varispeed 4y ago
Thinking about this kind of low level stuff sometimes is exhausting. Of course it is basic, but since it is basic why should I even think about it. It's like trying to bake a pizza and having to think how to grow tomatoes. If ChatGPT can free you up from thinking about the basics, you can channel your energy into some more advanced concepts.

varispeed 4y ago

This and also co-pilot. I was very sceptical about this tool, but installed it as a plugin for VSCode. Sometimes I feel it reads my mind. It's of course wrong many times, but the way it autocompletes code means, I am no longer hesitant writing a lot of code just to try things out, as it is much more enjoyable - this combined with ChatGPT really feels like having a superpower.