ChatGPT has helped me become a better Python coder, but you need to know how to use it properly.
I’ve tried many times over the years to learn how to code. I studied for a while at university, but Java wasn’t my thing, so I switched to another subject. I then picked up Python as a hobby, but it didn’t really click. In fact, it’s only in recent years that my Python coding skills have advanced from being a total beginner.
The tool that has helped me more than any other is ChatGPT. I could stare at an online explainer 100 times and it wouldn’t help me understand how my code should work the way that ChatGPT has. ChatGPT has made me a better coder—not by doing the work for me but by making me learn through the prism of its own limitations.
ChatGPT is my 24/7 tutor, making me a better coder
The good thing about ChatGPT is that it’s always available. At 3 in the morning, I can load up ChatGPT in my browser and ask an obscure question about my Python code. I can give it a script and tell me to explain how it works. I can break down concepts into their simplest forms or dive in deeper for a more technical explanation.
ChatGPT might make classes like this obsolete
Since I started using ChatGPT as a Q&A coding machine, I’ve learned more about programming than I ever did in lectures at university or by reading online guides. Rather than being clueless, I now know what kind of structure my scripts should take. More importantly, I know how to explain my code and how I want it to run.
I understand my programming better, so ChatGPT has made me a better coder. That’s right, I have ChatGPT to thank for my improved programming skills.
Errors, easily identified, easily fixed
When you’re a beginner, it’s easy to break your code. A missing quotation mark here, a badly formed function there. A loop that doesn’t, well, loop. Or a loop than never stops looping. This was perhaps one of my biggest struggles as a beginner, with ambitions that didn’t match my skill set. I knew vaguely how I wanted something to work, but I couldn’t get my code to match.
ChatGPT can help you debug your code
ChatGPT has helped overcome that problem. I can put in my code and ask it to troubleshoot a problem. It’ll then identify the cause and offer a solution, or fix the code for me, at least some of the time.
Other times, it’ll require me to think more deeply. I’ll then need to feed that back to ChatGPT, perhaps in a back-and-forth conversation, before it can offer a useful fix or suggestion.
I still need to think through my problems
ChatGPT isn’t perfect. I don’t believe the hype that it will suddenly replace the need to learn how to code at all, and there’s one reason why: more often than not, it needs interaction with you to reach the end result, whether that’s a completed script or a problem fixed, and that requires you to understand what you want and how to get there.
Use ChatGPT to help you understand your code better
ChatGPT is only as good as the code it has seen before. It can work through easy, simple coding projects without much input. As the complexity grows, so too are the difficulties that ChatGPT faces in making the code work for you, especially if you’re leaving the actual programming up to the chatbot to create.
You need to think about what you want and be able to break that down into a structure that you (and ChatGPT) can easily understand—anything too large and it struggles to work through it. It can get lazy, removing parts of your code entirely, or breaking it with “improvements” that don’t work.
A helpful tool, as long as you’re aware of the limitations
This is an important lesson. ChatGPT is a tool and no substitute for coding ability. You can get it to create basic scripts, sure. To get it to work properly, you need to understand what you want, and how to explain that in a prompt that ChatGPT can work through.
This is why I’ve become a better programmer. I’m able to understand problems better as a coder and how to troubleshoot them, even if I use ChatGPT to fix them. I understand the limitations of my code. I understand how to structure it. If there’s something I want to change, and I don’t yet understand how, I have enough programming skill to suggest something to ChatGPT and have it provide me with a solution within those parameters.
If you’re looking to become a programmer, ChatGPT is almost like magic. It’ll help you create the scripts you need, but to really understand and improve them, you need to learn the basics. Learn how and why your code is structured, so that when (and I mean when) ChatGPT ends up going around in circles, you can figure out why and fix the problem yourself.
I’d love to know what kind of programming challenges you’ve used ChatGPT for—and how many lines of code it took before ChatGPT started to struggle! Let me know in the comments below.
ChatGPT Has Made Me a Better Coder
ChatGPT has helped me become a better Python coder, but you need to know how to use it properly.
I’ve tried many times over the years to learn how to code. I studied for a while at university, but Java wasn’t my thing, so I switched to another subject. I then picked up Python as a hobby, but it didn’t really click. In fact, it’s only in recent years that my Python coding skills have advanced from being a total beginner.
The tool that has helped me more than any other is ChatGPT. I could stare at an online explainer 100 times and it wouldn’t help me understand how my code should work the way that ChatGPT has. ChatGPT has made me a better coder—not by doing the work for me but by making me learn through the prism of its own limitations.
ChatGPT is my 24/7 tutor, making me a better coder
The good thing about ChatGPT is that it’s always available. At 3 in the morning, I can load up ChatGPT in my browser and ask an obscure question about my Python code. I can give it a script and tell me to explain how it works. I can break down concepts into their simplest forms or dive in deeper for a more technical explanation.
ChatGPT might make classes like this obsolete
Since I started using ChatGPT as a Q&A coding machine, I’ve learned more about programming than I ever did in lectures at university or by reading online guides. Rather than being clueless, I now know what kind of structure my scripts should take. More importantly, I know how to explain my code and how I want it to run.
I understand my programming better, so ChatGPT has made me a better coder. That’s right, I have ChatGPT to thank for my improved programming skills.
Errors, easily identified, easily fixed
When you’re a beginner, it’s easy to break your code. A missing quotation mark here, a badly formed function there. A loop that doesn’t, well, loop. Or a loop than never stops looping. This was perhaps one of my biggest struggles as a beginner, with ambitions that didn’t match my skill set. I knew vaguely how I wanted something to work, but I couldn’t get my code to match.
ChatGPT can help you debug your code
ChatGPT has helped overcome that problem. I can put in my code and ask it to troubleshoot a problem. It’ll then identify the cause and offer a solution, or fix the code for me, at least some of the time.
Other times, it’ll require me to think more deeply. I’ll then need to feed that back to ChatGPT, perhaps in a back-and-forth conversation, before it can offer a useful fix or suggestion.
I still need to think through my problems
ChatGPT isn’t perfect. I don’t believe the hype that it will suddenly replace the need to learn how to code at all, and there’s one reason why: more often than not, it needs interaction with you to reach the end result, whether that’s a completed script or a problem fixed, and that requires you to understand what you want and how to get there.
Use ChatGPT to help you understand your code better
ChatGPT is only as good as the code it has seen before. It can work through easy, simple coding projects without much input. As the complexity grows, so too are the difficulties that ChatGPT faces in making the code work for you, especially if you’re leaving the actual programming up to the chatbot to create.
You need to think about what you want and be able to break that down into a structure that you (and ChatGPT) can easily understand—anything too large and it struggles to work through it. It can get lazy, removing parts of your code entirely, or breaking it with “improvements” that don’t work.
A helpful tool, as long as you’re aware of the limitations
This is an important lesson. ChatGPT is a tool and no substitute for coding ability. You can get it to create basic scripts, sure. To get it to work properly, you need to understand what you want, and how to explain that in a prompt that ChatGPT can work through.
This is why I’ve become a better programmer. I’m able to understand problems better as a coder and how to troubleshoot them, even if I use ChatGPT to fix them. I understand the limitations of my code. I understand how to structure it. If there’s something I want to change, and I don’t yet understand how, I have enough programming skill to suggest something to ChatGPT and have it provide me with a solution within those parameters.
If you’re looking to become a programmer, ChatGPT is almost like magic. It’ll help you create the scripts you need, but to really understand and improve them, you need to learn the basics. Learn how and why your code is structured, so that when (and I mean when) ChatGPT ends up going around in circles, you can figure out why and fix the problem yourself.
I’d love to know what kind of programming challenges you’ve used ChatGPT for—and how many lines of code it took before ChatGPT started to struggle! Let me know in the comments below.