I'm using AI assistants as an interactive search and coding assistant. I'm still driving the development and implementing the code.
Where I use it for is:
1. Remembering what something is called -- in my case the bootstrap pills class -- so I could locate it in the bootstrap docs. Google search didn't help as I couldn't recall the right name to enter into it. For the AI I described what I wanted to do and it gave the answer.
2. Working with a language/framework that I'm familiar with but don't know the specifics in what I'm trying to do. For example:
- In C#/.NET 8.0 how do I parse a JSON string?
- I have a C# application where I'm using `JsonSerializer.Deserialize` to convert a JSON string to a `record` class. The issue is that the names of the variables are capitalized -- e.g. `record Lorem(int Ipsum)` -- but the fields in the JSON are lowercase -- e.g. `{"ipsum": 123}`. How do I map the JSON fields to record properties?
- In C# how do I convert a `JsonNode` to a `JsonElement`?
3. Understanding specific exceptions and how to solve them.
In each case I'm describing things in general terms, not "here's the code, please fix it" or "write the entire code for me". I'm doing the work of applying the answers to the code I'm working on.
1. I usually just pull up the docs for the CSS framework, give it a quick look over to know what it offers and the nomenclature and then keep it open for all the code examples.
2. I've serialized json in enough languages to know the pain points, so what I usually do is locate the module/library responsible for that in that language. And then give the docs/code sample a quick lookover to know where things are.
3. With nice IDEs, you launch the debugger and you have a nice stack frame to go through. In languages with not so great tooling, you hope for a trace.
It's not that your workflow won't yield result. But I prefer to be able to answer 5 successive why's about the code I'm working on. With PRs taking hours and days to be merged, it's not like I'm in an hurry.
For 1 I tried looking through the bootstrap documentation but couldn't find it because they called it "Pills" and not what I was thinking. So I then tried google to search for it but that didn't work.
For 3 -- Sure, that can help. But sometimes it is difficult to follow what is going on. Especially if that comes from a library/framework you are unfamiliar with such as AWS.
I've also used it to help with build errors such as "Bar.csproj: Error NU1604 : Warning As Error: Project dependency Foo does not contain an inclusive lower bound. Include a lower bound in the dependency version to ensure consistent restore results." -- That was because it was using a fixed version of the module via the "[1.0]" syntax, but my version of NuGet and/or Rider didn't like that so once I new that and the range syntax specifying "[1.0, 1.0]" worked. I was able to understand that from the LLM response to the error message and telling it the specific `<PackageReference>`.
Where I use it for is:
1. Remembering what something is called -- in my case the bootstrap pills class -- so I could locate it in the bootstrap docs. Google search didn't help as I couldn't recall the right name to enter into it. For the AI I described what I wanted to do and it gave the answer.
2. Working with a language/framework that I'm familiar with but don't know the specifics in what I'm trying to do. For example:
- In C#/.NET 8.0 how do I parse a JSON string?
- I have a C# application where I'm using `JsonSerializer.Deserialize` to convert a JSON string to a `record` class. The issue is that the names of the variables are capitalized -- e.g. `record Lorem(int Ipsum)` -- but the fields in the JSON are lowercase -- e.g. `{"ipsum": 123}`. How do I map the JSON fields to record properties?
- In C# how do I convert a `JsonNode` to a `JsonElement`?
3. Understanding specific exceptions and how to solve them.
In each case I'm describing things in general terms, not "here's the code, please fix it" or "write the entire code for me". I'm doing the work of applying the answers to the code I'm working on.