this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2024
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I prefer 1000 times ChatGPT than asking in forums, specially for coding questions.
I can get multiple answers in a minute, multiple replies for the same question and do as many follow up questions as I please without having to wait patiently for an answer.
I still don't know how I managed to learn PowerShell on my own using Google only.
Just be wary of chatgpt output if you're new to scripting, it can make up things that don't exist or make stupid mistakes
Have seen poorly written batch install scripts that try to delete system32 if they can't find the folder they try to cd into because that's the default starting directory (they needed to be run as administrator)
Powershell I would say is able to do more damage to your machine much more easily than most programming languages if you make an oversight with it
It's Python what ChatGPT has helped me from almost zero prior knowledge, and I've managed to create a (probably shitty) script that works with OpenAI's API, uses classes and functions and can do things like recursively summarizing a text until it's below a specific token count, among several other things. As time went on, I required less help and I could implement more changes on my own.
I had prior (non-ChatGPT) Bash, PowerShell and BATCH knowledge.
It's true that ChatGPT has bamboozled me several times with wrong code, but unless it's something too complex, it get what I need in a few tries. For more complex stuff I have to use smaller more specific queries and in some cases I still Google things, but it's usually my last resort.
In any case, I frequenly ask ChatGPT for a detailed explanation of what does the code do, mostly because I want to clearly understand what I'm using, and it helps me learn new coding/scripting stuff.
I wouldn't trust ChatGPT with teaching me about some tool. It in my experience very convincingly spews out stuff it invented, and if one is still learning I can see it being hard to spot those errors. I use it to fix syntax errors in SQL queries, though, since I can't be bothered to try understanding the not-so-helpful error messages I get with my queries, and because if chaptgpt tells a lie it will be caught by my syntax checker.
So, I guess you can use it, if you always assume it to be trying to mislead you until proven to the contrary.
I would and I have, but you can't always blindly trust what it says. It's better to ask it to explain in detail the code it produces, so you can really learn and also as a safeguard.