How I Use ChatGPT
I was quite excited when ChatGPT first came out. It brought back some excitement that I missed since the introduction of Google search. I wasn't sure what to think about it, but I played with it to see if it could help with boilerplate stuff. Right off the bat I didn't trust it to write production code for me and I still don't to this day (I'll share more thoughts on this next time). But I find it useful for boilerplate although most of the time I could just make them into snippets for my editor and be even quicker. I did ask it a few questions here and there but just a few months ago I found out how to make the best of it for myself.
I enjoy trying to learn new things and the problem today is that we are overwhelmed with mediocre information, ads, repetitive or unnecessarily verbose articles, or just unfounded information. The way things are taught though, as one would expect, are from the perspective of the author. They have a mental model that clicked for them and they write about it, not only because it helps with learning (I mention this in Tricking Myself to Write More but I'm hoping to write an actual post on it this year), but because one hopes to help someone else make it click. I'm sure you found yourself trying to understand something and after three articles and two videos you finally figure it out. It would be a lot easier if you could interact with the author and dig in whenever something is not clear. Have them explain it in a different manner or with different examples (hey this just gave me an idea!). Sometimes there are certain aspects you want to explore in more detail, unfortunately you'd have to go find the right content, so there you go again.
That's where I found ChatGPT to shine for me. I'll write about the specific topic I was digging into a while ago maybe tomorrow. There was a technical article I read where one sentence in particular didn't add up to me. I thought I had the right understanding for an engineering concept but it just didn't align with the author. That's when I tried seeking clarification with ChatGPT. Even though some of the explanations didn't add up, I was able to follow up with more questions, digging deeper into that one detail that wasn't clicking for me and eventually got to my answer. On top of it all I learned more about database journaling and generally about database engines in a different way from what I'm used to in my day to day at work.
That's the new "relationship" I established with ChatGPT and what I waited too long to fiddle with was prompt engineering. Really instructing precisely HOW you want the response being sent back to you makes a big difference. I still haven't got to the ideal setup but I'm getting quite closer.
Thoughts
Learning how to use the tools at your disposal today can make quite a difference. I'm a firm believer that you shouldn't use them to replace the work you do (but please replace repetitive stuff that doesn't teach you anything and is a waste of your time). My thoughts never go through ChatGPT, I'm sure you noticed from my writing but that's the pont. I write because I want to get better at it but if I had other tools do it for me I wouldn't exercise that muscle as much. Tools like this can help playing a supporting role not a leading role. I plan to refine how to validate the information I learn and its sources, this far I was always able to get trusted data but you should never give that for granted.
Long story short, I think ChatGPT is a powerful tool to help you learn. You can determine exactly what you want to dig into and to what extent, you also decide how the information is delivered to you in terms you're familiar with.