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by acodingcow 1122 days ago
I feel like this type of task was already handled well by ChatGPT. I am a designer currently learning web development. When I am confused about something, I just add a prompt such as "explain it to a middle school student" to the question.

For example,

Q: "What is closure in javascript?"

GPT4.0: A closure in JavaScript is a function that has access to its own scope, the scope of the outer function, and the global scope. This feature enables the function to access variables from an enclosing scope even after that scope has finished execution, providing a sort of "memory" for the function.

Q: "What is closure in javascript? Your task is to explain it to a middle school student."

GPT4.0: "Imagine you're building a magical castle. Inside this castle, you have a special room where you keep all your secret treasures. Normally, once you leave the room, you can't see or use the treasures anymore.

But then, you invent a magical backpack. With this backpack, you can take any treasure from the room, and no matter where you go, you can always see and use the treasure you put into the backpack. Even if the room disappears, the treasures in your backpack stay with you.

In JavaScript land, the "castle" is like your program, the "room" is a function, and the "treasures" are variables or data that the function uses. A closure is like the magical backpack. It's a special kind of function that remembers the variables it saw when it was created, even after the function it was created inside is done running."

3 comments

I’ll say that this example doesn’t convince me that chatgpt is a substitute. I find it downright confusing.

We start off with “imagine a magic castle”, then a magical backpack that lets you put things in and take them out in a different location - doesn’t a regular backpack do this already? and a (magical?) room that disappears. None of this makes any sense, it doesn’t relate any of these concepts to something a student might already know about.

I don’t doubt that gpt will continue to improve, but this example makes me feel like the OP will definitely be able to add value for explaining concepts.

Smart prompt and yes, ChatGPT is very useful for learning, no doubt. Especially for javascript since it is so widespread and so many learning ressources incorporated. So mostly things should be fine. (for more exotic languages, it isn't)

But you still have to check with proper ressources and if possible, a real human at the current state of tech. Otherwise you will likely get some things very wrong and that can hurt you later.

Congrats on learning web development! ChatGPT can indeed be super helpful when learning programming, I wish I had access to such a tool back in my days when I was learning it. A lot of people I'm working with are not using it in such a form, and maybe my newsletter can help them learn some of those terms.