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by ascar 782 days ago
Due to the nature of my current work I haven't really used GPT for coding yet, but I keep wondering isn't it easier to write code than to read and truly understand it? So how much development time was really saved, if I still care about off-by-one errors or correct identity checks in hash maps or all those edge cases I probably should care about? Those are all things much harder to spot reading than writing the code.

So I keep wondering if we just save time by introducing more unknown bugs using GPT?

I guess this also has a lot to do with what code is written. I would be much more concerned with a system level C++ library than some JavaScript CRUD.

1 comments

Your comment is a great example of how intelligent humans hallucinate!

Gpt-4 often handles errors well. The generated code is easy to review if you understand what you asked for (if it generates tests and examples too-which it can). Etc

People have different experiences with any given thing. You might find your TV remote intuitive and easy to us. Your grandparents might find it overwhelmingly difficult. Which is true?
Yeah, sorry for the snark. I was mostly referring to how the comment I replied to said they hadn’t actually used GPT for coding, but had lots of ideas about its limitations etc.
If you read closely I am not talking about the limitations of GPT, but about the limitations of the developer having to fix code of others (GPT essentially being another developer). I guess it depends on the complexity of the problem. A lot of stuff is very easy to review and for me other stuff needs more time to understand than it did to write.