A.I. as a programming assistant..?

[attofishpi]

in the year i've been using it that surprised me :-

Oh no, the first signs of turning into Age.

Really? How so?

PING!! Ah, the quotes!?

[Flannel Jesus]

in the year i've been using it that surprised me :-

Oh no, the first signs of turning into Age.

Really? How so?

PING!! Ah, the quotes!?

Referring to "now" as "in the year when this was written" lmao.

[attofishpi]

O

[attofishpi]

I tried it myself:

Is Elo rating 300 Elo more advanced skill level than 1300 Elo?
ChatGPT
An Elo rating of 300 is significantly lower in skill level compared to an Elo rating of 1300. In the Elo rating system, which is commonly used in chess and other competitive games, a higher rating indicates a stronger player. Here’s a general breakdown:

300 Elo: This is considered a very low rating, indicating a beginner or someone who is very new to the game.
1300 Elo: This rating is considered intermediate. Players at this level have a solid understanding of the game and can handle basic strategies and tactics.
Therefore, a player with a rating of 1300 Elo is much more advanced and skilled than a player with a rating of 300 Elo. The difference of 1000 Elo points is substantial, suggesting that the 1300 Elo player would consistently win against the 300 Elo player.

Maybe one of us is using gpt 3.5 and one is on 4.

I missed this post. Yes - when I am not logged in it's 3.5. Interesting..

[ThinkOfOne]

Does anyone here use ChatGPT or other AI as an assistant to their programming?

I use ChatGPT all the time and it is saving me loads of time.

Anything I am not sure how to do in most languages, I get the answer with sample code generated. Rather than searching stackoverflow etc..can't remember last time I was on that site.

I've been using GPT to do most of the code on anything basic - rather than typing out a lot of stuff, I get GPT to create the template for what I need and modify from there.

..and for code analysis - it's fantastic - I created a javascript function and all of a sudden none of the JS functions worked. I spent 10 mins looking at the code for all those daft things, ya know a single character that might be missing or out of place - didn't spot anything - then I thought mmm get GPT to look at it. Straight away there was a missing '+' for a string concatenation.

Everyday I am amazed at how "clever" it is - if I need something added to code that I am not sure how to do - such as just now creating drop down selection lists where one defines what the second list contains. I gave it this prompt:
I will paste dosomething.php which needs modifiction to provide for two 'drop-down' selection boxes. The first will have the 3 options: person/country/symbol and depending on which one is selected then the second 'drop'down' selection box will contain a list of: peoples names/country names/symbol names. Do you know how to add this functionality to it: <I pasted my current dosomething PHP text>


It adjusted the code perfectly on testing first time...AND...it created sample options as per this snippet of the JS code:-

if (category === 'person') {
options = ['John Doe', 'Jane Smith', 'Bob Johnson'];
} else if (category === 'country') {
options = ['USA', 'Canada', 'Mexico']The ;
} else if (category === 'symbol') {
options = ['Heart', 'Star', 'Circle'];
}

Hey presto!! It gave me SAMPLE peoples names, country names, symbol names - just wow honestly!

The "value " of using AI as a programming assistant is inversely proportional to the skill level of the software developer. In other words, the higher the skill level of the software developer, the lower the value. In a professional software development environment, its "value" is dubious if not specious.

[attofishpi]

The "value " of using AI as a programming assistant is inversely proportional to the skill level of the software developer. In other words, the higher the skill level of the software developer, the lower the value. In a professional software development environment, its "value" is dubious if not specious.

You appear to be suggesting I am a shite programmer. Have you tested its use in modular programming?

[Flannel Jesus]

The "value " of using AI as a programming assistant is inversely proportional to the skill level of the software developer. In other words, the higher the skill level of the software developer, the lower the value. In a professional software development environment, its "value" is dubious if not specious.

I think it's the opposite. Low level programmers won't know what mistakes to look for in the output of the AI. High level programmers understand better how to tell the difference between the code it's doing well and the code it's doing poorly, as well as how to specify more clearly to the AI what you actually want to be coded up (and why).

[ThinkOfOne]

The "value " of using AI as a programming assistant is inversely proportional to the skill level of the software developer. In other words, the higher the skill level of the software developer, the lower the value. In a professional software development environment, its "value" is dubious if not specious.

You appear to be suggesting I am a shite programmer. Have you tested its use in modular programming?

Given your response, it would seem likely that you are marginally competent at best. I've known many who were able to make long careers out of being just that. But when faced with problems above a certain level of complexity, they would be pretty much clueless. As such their value was limited.

[ThinkOfOne]

The "value " of using AI as a programming assistant is inversely proportional to the skill level of the software developer. In other words, the higher the skill level of the software developer, the lower the value. In a professional software development environment, its "value" is dubious if not specious.

I think it's the opposite. Low level programmers won't know what mistakes to look for in the output of the AI. High level programmers understand better how to tell the difference between the code it's doing well and the code it's doing poorly, as well as how to specify more clearly to the AI what you actually want to be coded up (and why).

HIghly skilled software developers can consistently produce high quality solutions using their well-developed skills as well as depth and breadth of knowledge and understanding. There's little to no value for them to go to AI for solutions. Much more often than not, their solutions will be of a higher quality than anything that they could get from AI (and before that stackoverflow or what have you).

Often times marginally competent developers remain marginally competent because they can "get by" by getting code from AI (and before that stackoverflow or what have you). They never develop the skills and depth of understanding needed to become highly skilled software developers.

[attofishpi]

The "value " of using AI as a programming assistant is inversely proportional to the skill level of the software developer. In other words, the higher the skill level of the software developer, the lower the value. In a professional software development environment, its "value" is dubious if not specious.

You appear to be suggesting I am a shite programmer. Have you tested its use in modular programming?

Given your response, it would seem likely that you are marginally competent at best.

What in my response are you basing that assessment on?'

Hey! I bet you think I'm just a daft 'script monkey'!! cos I've not mentioned compiled code..just daft web shite...mmm?

I've known many who were able to make long careers out of being just that. But when faced with problems above a certain level of complexity, they would be pretty much clueless.

What's the level of complexity you are suggesting - how about an example?

[Flannel Jesus]

The "value " of using AI as a programming assistant is inversely proportional to the skill level of the software developer. In other words, the higher the skill level of the software developer, the lower the value. In a professional software development environment, its "value" is dubious if not specious.

I think it's the opposite. Low level programmers won't know what mistakes to look for in the output of the AI. High level programmers understand better how to tell the difference between the code it's doing well and the code it's doing poorly, as well as how to specify more clearly to the AI what you actually want to be coded up (and why).

HIghly skilled software developers can consistently produce high quality solutions using their well-developed skills as well as depth and breadth of knowledge and understanding. There's little to no value for them to go to AI for solutions. Much more often than not, their solutions will be of a higher quality than anything that they could get from AI (and before that stackoverflow or what have you).

Often times marginally competent developers remain marginally competent because they can "get by" by getting code from AI (and before that stackoverflow or what have you). They never develop the skills and depth of understanding needed to become highly skilled software developers.

Are you a programmer?

[ThinkOfOne]

You appear to be suggesting I am a shite programmer. Have you tested its use in modular programming?

Given your response, it would seem likely that you are marginally competent at best.

What in my response are you basing that assessment on?'

Hey! I bet you think I'm just a daft 'script monkey'!! cos I've not mentioned compiled code..just daft web shite...mmm?

Irrational defensiveness. Most likely stemming from pride. Non sequitur. Irrelevant question.

[ThinkOfOne]

I think it's the opposite. Low level programmers won't know what mistakes to look for in the output of the AI. High level programmers understand better how to tell the difference between the code it's doing well and the code it's doing poorly, as well as how to specify more clearly to the AI what you actually want to be coded up (and why).

HIghly skilled software developers can consistently produce high quality solutions using their well-developed skills as well as depth and breadth of knowledge and understanding. There's little to no value for them to go to AI for solutions. Much more often than not, their solutions will be of a higher quality than anything that they could get from AI (and before that stackoverflow or what have you).

Often times marginally competent developers remain marginally competent because they can "get by" by getting code from AI (and before that stackoverflow or what have you). They never develop the skills and depth of understanding needed to become highly skilled software developers.

Are you a programmer?

Spent a lot of time in software development including coding, systems design and project lead. Why do you ask?

Most of it project work. So was in and out of a number of development groups. Here's an interesting thing. In general, maybe the top 10 percent would really know what they were doing. The bottom 30 to 40 percent would be marginally competent. With everyone else somewhere in between. Most seemed to have a reasonable understanding of their limitations. Though it wouldn't be uncommon for a couple who didn't even understand enough to understand that they didn't understand. They were nigh impossible to reason with. Seemed like a pride thing. Seems quite prevalent in the general population. Especially these days. At least in the US. Think of the political divide.

[attofishpi]

Given your response, it would seem likely that you are marginally competent at best.

What in my response are you basing that assessment on?'

Hey! I bet you think I'm just a daft 'script monkey'!! cos I've not mentioned compiled code..just daft web shite...mmm?

Irrational defensiveness. Most likely stemming from pride. Non sequitur. Irrelevant question.

You are coming across rather arrogant. Again I will ask but slightly differently, have you used an AI of the calibre of ChatGPT for ANY reason recently for coding or otherwise?

I am still interested in an example of what you are talking about when you state: "But when faced with problems above a certain level of complexity, they would be pretty much clueless."

What is "complex" to you? I meet up with a retired software\computer engineer form the Netherlands occasionally at a dog park and we chat for hours about loads of things that we could not talk about with general populous - and I admit I haven't the experience level as he does - but I do ok with him but he answers my questions a lot more on the current topic. I will point out - he uses the AI too now as an assistant. The guy has written compilers so he knows his shit. He has hobbies coding to make use of new tech - VR & 360 cameras and is finding the AI a handy knowledge base.

Getting back to your response to the thread title in suggesting an extremely advanced & experienced coder would find AI of little use. I'd agree where said coder is working within the confines of a language and hardware requirements that he/she is thoroughly familiar with. They'd have copious amounts of generic code libraries at their disposal for one thing. But let's say a solution was asked of them that required development within a language they were not familiar, let's say for arguments sake they were asked to develop a client server publicly accessible web based solution using these awful scripting languages such as PHP\JS.
Surely you'd understand the value to get up to speed quickly by using AI to provide templates of code via prompting the AI with spec requirements of the code you need then modifying it to suit on the fly - rather than looking up in a manual how to do very simple things such as defining a function, variable, condition statement, UI tools etc.. in this new coding language?

[godelian]

if (category === 'person') {
options = ['John Doe', 'Jane Smith', 'Bob Johnson'];
} else if (category === 'country') {
options = ['USA', 'Canada', 'Mexico'];
} else if (category === 'symbol') {
options = ['Heart', 'Star', 'Circle'];
}

Hey presto!! It gave me SAMPLE peoples names, country names, symbol names - just wow honestly!

I would rather write it as following:

Code: Select all

var optionsByCategory = {
"person":  ['John Doe', 'Jane Smith', 'Bob Johnson'],
"country": ['USA', 'Canada', 'Mexico'],
"symbol":  ['Heart', 'Star', 'Circle']
};

var options=optionsByCategory[category];

ChatGPT's suggestion inter-mixes data with a particular code fragment that happens to use it.

If another code fragment ever needs the same configuration data, you are going to have to copy and paste and therefore duplicate the same data.

It also becomes impossible to query the configuration data in other ways than initially expected. For example, "To what category does "Circle" belong?", cannot be answered by the data in the code suggested by ChatGPT.

It's usually a bad sign when you see heavy mixing of data and code.