How is ChatGPT Useful for Developers?

No doubt, ChatGPT has taken the world by storm 💹. Within a week of its launch, it had 1 million users.

OpenAI has introduced this popular chatbot or language model that generates human-like text based on the given input. People have used ChatGPT to generate almost every kind of text, from essays and poems to landing pages and website content.

Surprisingly, this chatbot is capable of generating code snippets too. Besides, ChatGPT helps developers in testing and debugging code. In short, it revolutionizes how programmers write, test, and debug their code.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already brought much advancement in the software development process. Though it can generate, test, and debug code, it cannot replace developers. The inception of ChatGPT has been a boon to programmers. However, there needs to be more consensus among people that it would replace developers.

In this article, I'll explain the uses of ChatGPT for developers. Also, I will make you aware of the other side, i.e., how ChatGPT falls short.

10 Ways ChatGPT Helps Developers🧑 💻

Developers already use a variety of AI and ML-powered tools in software development. Text generation and autocompletion software have become common in the development space.

For instance, GitHub Copilot leverages OpenAI Codex and suggests code and other functions while writing code from the code editor.

What makes ChatGPT different is that it generates code based on the user's prompt and not pre-programmed commands.

Here are a few ways ChatGPT helps developers and makes their process quick.

1. Testing

Test cases play a vital role in ensuring that different features of an application work as intended and that the application meets all the standard quality requirements. ChatGPT can generate test cases and assertions when you provide the relevant functions and variables. This way, it helps developers in testing software apps.

Please check that the generated test cases and assertions align with your project's requirements.

2. Debugging

ChatGPT simplifies the process of debugging. It is the process of locating and fixing bugs in the source code. Please provide the error message; the tool will provide suggestions and all possible solutions. Hence, developers do not have to spend hours debugging code.

3. Documentation

In programming, documentation is the process of describing a specific software and creating it in formal writing. It helps other programmers understand what software is and how it is created.

With ChatGPT, developers can create documentation for their code by suggesting specific documentation templates and examples based on the functions and variables.

4. Error Detection

Easy and quick error detection in the source code helps developers work efficiently. ChatGPT can identify different types of errors, such as syntax errors, and provides suggestions or solutions.

5. Code Completion

You might know code completion if you are a developer and use integrated development environments (IDEs). As you write the code, you get a list of suggestions regarding the complete code line. On selecting one of the suggestions you need, you don't need to write that code manually. This significantly saves time and reduces errors. ChaGPT can help with code completion.

6. Code Formatting

It refers to making the source code readable, understandable, and easily adjustable. Using proper comments and space is a must to make code readable.

With ChatGPT, you can format your code to improve its readability based on the standard style guidelines. So you don't have to worry about investing your time in code formatting.

7. Refactoring

As you write your code, ChatGPT provides suggestions for code refactoring. It is the process of changing the structure of the existing source code without affecting its functionality or external behavior. It is yet another practice to make the source code readable and maintainable.

8. Search Assistant

ChatGPT is an AI-powered tool trained with 45 terabytes of text data from heterogeneous sources. So, you can use it as a search assistant. It provides relevant results based on the trained dataset. Enter the text prompt regarding what you need, and the tool will provide accurate results. This way, developers can save time researching.

9. Text Classification

It refers to classifying text based on categories. With ChatGPT, developers can classify product requirements into functional and non-functional requirements and constraints.

10. Summarization

Clients provide a long list of requirements to developers. With an understanding of the requirements, it's possible to start the development process. Developers can use ChatGPT to summarize the requirements and understand them quickly.

Why ChatGPT Falls Short?

Every software having tremendous benefits comes with a few pitfalls. This applies to ChatGPT. Here are a few areas where the tool needs to be improved.

1. Needs Human Judgement

ChatGPT works based on the datasets used for training. It does not have emotional intelligence like humans. Though it generates accurate results, the results need human judgment.

Also, it generates code snipped based on previous ones fed to it. As a result, you cannot see any innovation in your code. Could you check whether the resulting code solves your actual problem?

In a nutshell, you cannot blindly copy and paste the code snippets generated by ChatGPT.

2. No Problem-Solving

Using plagiarized code in app development may result in legal, ethical, and security risks. There is a high risk of generating plagiarized code with ChatGPT. As stated above, the tool has no emotional intelligence like humans though it simulates human-like conversations. It also needs problem-solving skills.

Use ChatGPT to Facilitate Development!

ChatGPT has been an extremely beneficial tool since its inception. With its ability to generate text, marketers, website owners, content writers, developers, and many other professionals have adopted it. Though it generates text and code, verifying it and checking whether it meets your requirements is essential.

Originally Posted: Medium.com

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