I've been waiting for an article like this. As a software developer I completely agree with them.
Often when I mention I use ChatGPT I get strange looks. Its like people automatically assume I am going to ChatGPT and saying "Build me a software that does x". I personally see no value in asking it something like that. Its the simple questions that save me 10-15 minutes of reading through google results. For example I often time ask it to rewrite statements into linq or to compare two ways of doing something. Its not correct 100% of the time but it is correct often enough to save me 10 minutes multiple times a day.
To be fair, Resharper has been showing developers how to convert code into LINQ for over a decade. Using ChatGPT seems to be way slower than having IDE integration and auto-refactorings available.
I actually paid for resharper for many years. However when I switched over to VS22 I decided to give it a shot without it. As its definitely still lacking compared to resharper I have been using ChatGPT to fill in the gaps. If I get charged for ChatGPT I will most likely go back to resharper as you said its IDE integrated and ChatGPT is not atm.
I've also found that it's great at writing boilerplate and the really common stuff, that's pretty much perfect.
The key is to only ask it to do things that you know will work and more or less how to do them. Every time I slip up and ask it something that I don't know and may not be physically possible it'll just make up something that's just convincing enough to waste my time verifying that it doesn't work.
Now, imo, the problem is that there's "value" (to be extracted). How much is 10 mins of your time 4x a day worth? Whatever that is, OpenAI/MS will notice and start charging. A little at first, then what the market will bear. Don't think modern corporations won't take back what they giveth.
That's just medium-term, longer-term I'll leave open to anyone's personal interpretation.
Completely agree. If they start charging for what I am using it for I would switch back to resharper. If I'm going to pay I may as well may it as convenient as possible and integrate it into VS.
I frequently write ChatGPT requests such as: "Create a c# object with the following fields: CustomerID, FirstName, LastName, RegistrationDate" (or the like). The fields might be pasted from a SQL query. It does a pretty remarkable job even guessing the correct types.
You might enjoy Github Copilot. I'm using the free 60 day trial and it's produced some really remarkable code snippets that were very helpful. Also, it's suggested code that was wildly unhelp so YMMV.
I've been using it for exploratory docs reading. Jumping back into an unfamiliar language, I try to sketch out a broad outline of what I want to do. Ask ChatGPT to fill in some of the specifics ("a function which takes x and produces y, using recursion" as a dumb example), then check what it spits out and read up on bits of libraries that otherwise would have taken an annoying amount of searching.
With the decline of Google search usefulness at least in my own experience, ChatGPT has been a big timesaver as I don't have to search until I know exactly what I'm looking for and how to phrase it.
100% this. All the example I've already seen, along with this article and my own tests seem to indicate that ChatGPT is just utter shit at Javascript. When the answers aren't just 100% plain wrong, they are terribly misguided. So a generation of StackOverflow copy-pasters idiots will be replaced by another generation of GPT copy-pasters idiots. I'm not looking forward to that.
I've copy and pasted project requirements into it and gotten completely working projects, out the box. But modifying them was a pain in the ass and I had to scrap those solutions. I was amazed it did that but its not how I use it now.
Alternatively, I use it as a faster Stackoverflow without the community building hazing, snark and bullshit. I'm able to ask it far more abstract questions and get accurate answers. I'm able to ask followup questions and it knows that it is related to the same project I was working on. It is very fast at explaining why as well, or explaining the difference and interrelatedness of concepts, which documentation doesn't do well. It can provide examples that mix multiple concepts, which can be difficult to find. It can generate more complex examples, like, sure you know how to do a REST call in X language with Y framework, but do you know how to do it with this state management system on top of it with this typing system wrapped on top of it? What this unexpected error message means? ChatGPT will give you all of that if you tell it.
I still look at existing answers on Stackoverflow, and I still look at framework documentation. But as far as actually asking questions, I'll unlikely be using Stackoverflow or question and answer sites for that.
Bummer, could have saved themselves a ton of time. Maybe I'll use chatgpt to publish, "chatgpt for click-bait content creators". Actually, nevermind, folks can just ask it.
Often when I mention I use ChatGPT I get strange looks. Its like people automatically assume I am going to ChatGPT and saying "Build me a software that does x". I personally see no value in asking it something like that. Its the simple questions that save me 10-15 minutes of reading through google results. For example I often time ask it to rewrite statements into linq or to compare two ways of doing something. Its not correct 100% of the time but it is correct often enough to save me 10 minutes multiple times a day.