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A Student's Guide to Writing with ChatGPT

(openai.com)
323 points timbilt | 8 comments | 13 Nov 24 19:26 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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RobinL ◴[13 Nov 24 19:44 UTC] No.42129191[source]▶
I think this is pretty good advice.

I think often AI sceptics go too far in assuming users blindly use the AI to do everything (write all the code, write the whole essay). The advice in this article largely mirrors - by analogy - how I use AI for coding. To rubber duck, to generate ideas, to ask for feedback, to ask for alternatives and for criticism.

Usually it cannot write the whole thing (essay, program )in one go, but by iterating bewteen the AI and myself, I definitely end up with better results.

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SunlitCat ◴[13 Nov 24 19:56 UTC] No.42129299[source]▶
Well, I got chatgpt (gpt4o) to write me a very basic json parser once (and a gltf parser). Although it was very basic and lacking any error checking, it did what i asked it (although not in one go, i had to refine my questions multiple times).
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amelius ◴[13 Nov 24 20:26 UTC] No.42129595[source]▶
Chatgpt is great for writing regular expressions by the way.
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1. WalterBright ◴[13 Nov 24 20:30 UTC] No.42129641[source]▶
Just because it spits out a RE doesn't mean the RE is what you wanted. For one thing, you'll need to be precise in your prompt.
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2. amelius ◴[13 Nov 24 21:43 UTC] No.42130337[source]▶
You don't need to be precise. Just give it an example string and tell it what information you want to extract from it and it usually works. It is just way faster than doing it manually.
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3. zikduruqe ◴[13 Nov 24 23:02 UTC] No.42131189[source]▶
Claude/ChatGPT has become my man pages.
4. ojosilva ◴[13 Nov 24 23:51 UTC] No.42131549[source]▶
Yeah, in line with the old RE adage: I had a problem. I used AI. Now I have two problems.
5. antod ◴[14 Nov 24 01:00 UTC] No.42132017[source]▶
Rhetorical question: Can you ever fully be sure you have the regex you wanted?
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6. rjh29 ◴[14 Nov 24 01:41 UTC] No.42132275[source]▶
Writing regexes by hand is hard so there will always be some level of testing involved. But reading a regex and verifying it works is easier than writing one from scratch.
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7. antod ◴[14 Nov 24 02:04 UTC] No.42132410{3}[source]▶
My overly snide point about regexes was that most of the time "verifying it works" is more like finding and fixing a few more edge cases on the asymptotic journey towards no more brokenness.
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8. rjh29 ◴[14 Nov 24 12:50 UTC] No.42135712{4}[source]▶
Yeah I agree with that! 100% test coverage seems impossible when every part of the regex is basically an if condition.
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