I’m a full-stack developer and if you’re into this job, probably you’ve noticed that you spend most of your dev-time looking for a way to do this or that. The question arises: how helpful can ChatGPT be for us?
I tried to use it asking the most various questions (in particular for some quick solutions that would take more time searching on Google and which, in the end, would take me on Stackoverflow) than effectively working on it.
Cutting short, one of the problems I’m currently facing is connecting a .net backend to a Mobile app (written in Flutter) and the main capability this App must have it’s to register vocal notes and turn them into text. I’ve faced a similar problem before in my career so I knew before asking which is the best answer ChatGPT could give.
This is its answer:
At first glance, an inexperienced dev could think that their problem is gone. Surely, it’s a good starting point, but not necessarily better than what one can find in Microsoft’s documentation. Moreover, following the official guide would have made you conscious of many problems a solution of that kind will take. For example, the critical security issue of having the key and endpoint in plaintext of an expensive upon-usage service that could be stolen by someone. Furthermore, the solution proposed by the AI doesn’t follow any particular architecture nor does any error management.
In short, ChatGPT has the capability to refine its answers, but you need to provide it with more information and engage in real dialogue to explain your needs better. As a result, this process may sometimes be more time-consuming than the conventional methods we are all used to.
On the one hand, ChatGPT might not be the best option for tasks that require more experience. On the other hand, it works very well with simpler questions. For example, yesterday my .net backend had an issue merging two excel files. I asked ChatGPT for the main problem that can occur in that scenario, and it answered me listing the main issues.
Underlined is the one which I investigated on.
So, in my opinion, the usefulness of ChatGPT ultimately depends on you – on your ability to identify and articulate your needs, on your experience in evaluating the accuracy and relevance of its responses, and finally on your capability to narrow down your requests to obtain the most appropriate answers.
