Introduction
I believe that every programmer has at least once heard about ChatGPT and its marvelous abilities to process, calculate and create huge amounts of data; if not, go check out this Wikipedia article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT.
Can you imagine that some 50 years ago people could not even believe that there may be something artificial surpassing humans in so many areas? Nowadays, we have this marvel at the distance of a few tabs on a phone screen or a keyboard; however, there is still a sadly large number of people who do not fully—if at all— utilize all the perks of ChatGPT in their lines of work. This is mostly related either to people's reluctance to learn new technologies or the fear of losing coding skills they have previously gained—which is not the case with using ChatGPT properly.
In this article I want to give you some of the most useful uses of ChatGPT for your coding work. Remember, there is nothing shameful in using the AI, since this the development and further implementation of it in our day-to-day life is inevitable, so we should start adapting to it as early as we can to take the full advantage of this "magical" technology. Let's get started.
1. Generates code for you when you are stuck on a problem.
The most obvious use of ChatGPT is to write code from your queries. We all encounter situations when we simply have no idea how to approach a task, and this is when the AI can come in handy. For instance, suppose that you don't know how to write an IP changer using Python, so you simply query the AI and it generetes pretty good code. You can modify and improve the code by giving ChatGPT more feedback about the provided response. Treat it like another person who know virtaully anything.
2. Refactors and checks your code for errors.
Okay, so you have written some code and now it's time to launch it. Oops, your code doesn't compile or works not as excpected. Don't worry, ChatGPT can help you here as well. Say that we have written the binary search algorithm in C++ but it doesn't work as expected. Simply paste your code in ChatGPT, describe how the code should work, and what does not work as expected.
3. Explain each line of the generated code.
If the code generated by ChatGPT is unclear to you, you may ask the AI about anything in its code snippet.
4. Helps you understand different topics.
Any great coder is also a great learner, so thoroughly understanding coding concepts is what will boost your code quality exponentially.
5. Generates tests for your program.
Almost always, creating tests for a program is a daunting task. So why not to use ChatGPT, the greatest data generator ever built, for this purpose? Just provide ChatGPT with the format you want it to write the test, which language to use, and which format the expected results should be in.
If you have anything more specific, don't be afraid to provide the AI with every detail you can possibly think of.
Conclusion.
In this short article I have provided you with the 5 most important uses of ChatGPT for us, programmers. Personally, I use this technology daily and my coding skills have grown significantly since the beginning of me merging with the AI. Don't be afraid to use this technology to your advantage, you will not lose anything but save up more of your time and understand coding much better. If you have any more useful tips for using ChatGPT, please, share it in the comments!