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by worksonmine 877 days ago
I get what it does, I've seen demos and it is no doubt impressive, but I have no personal use and don't see the point of giving them any data. I'm not limited in my current workflow and prefer official docs over the LLM interpretation of those same docs. The real satire are all the comments on any problem asking "have you tried GPT", more annoying than the Rust community.

What do you use it for that you think would benefit me?
2 comments
int_19h 876 days ago
GPT-4 is miles ahead of anything else (including DeepL) when it comes to translations, for one thing.
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The_Colonel 877 days ago
One example for which I use ChatGPT is tip of the tongue. I can't remember a word, but I can describe it in other ways. Google doesn't catch on those keywords, ChatGPT does.

It's also pretty good for generating pointers for a complex solution. Like I try to figure out something in the non-JPA old version of EclipseLink, so I ask ChatGPT. The generated code is very often wrong, but it often points me into a right direction.

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worksonmine 876 days ago
I just use a thesaurus and hit one or more synonyms for the first example. The second isn't really a problem I encounter, some docs are terrible yes but I jump to definition or search the web.

I might've had more use when I was new to programming but my workflow these days is pretty solid and I don't see myself saving time by typing prompts and debugging output rather than just coding.

If it is too complex for me to understand I wouldn't really trust the output anyway and might spend a lot more time sanity checking the generated code and it might not be very useful in the end. I'll try someday if I really get stuck, I expect to get disappointed though.

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rockemsockem 876 days ago
Do you never find yourself using brand new tools or languages? My most common use-case for chatGPT is "explain this syntax <codeblock>" and "<language-construct in languageX>". Simple stuff that it pretty much can't get wrong. Much faster than Googling the same.
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worksonmine 876 days ago
Constantly, but like I mentioned in the other 2 comments I just RTFM. Why would I need a chatbot to explain me something the devs put effort in explaining? New languages these days are pretty well documented. And you can read the entire C reference manual in an afternoon.

Asking GPT to summarize something like that is beyond lazy.

Side-note: stop using google as a verb, you're "searching", teach your peers that there are alternatives that are both better and won't ask you for your first born.

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rockemsockem 876 days ago
No it isn't beyond lazy, it's a more efficient use of my time. If I want in depth language features explained then I read the documentation. If I want to be reminded of specific syntax as rapidly as possible then I'll keep using ChatGPT and save tons of time over the course of a week. And if you refused to even google in such scenarios beforehand then that is a really, really inefficient use of time.

Side-note to your side-note: No. Stop acting like some holier than thou elitist. You're coming off as a luddite.

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