Enhancing Your Coding Journey with ChatGPT: The Power of Pseudocode

In the rapidly evolving world of programming, AI tools like ChatGPT have become indispensable allies. However, the effectiveness of these tools heavily relies on how we communicate our coding problems. One effective approach is using pseudocode to guide AI in generating actual code.

The Pseudocode Approach: Pseudocode, a high-level description of a computer program or algorithm, serves as a bridge between our conceptual understanding and the precise coding language. When interacting with AI models like ChatGPT, presenting your problem in the form of pseudocode can significantly improve the accuracy and relevance of the response.

Example Case: String Analysis Consider a simple task: checking if multiple words exist within a given string.

Sample String: "Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs." Find if 'box' and 'five' exist in the string and return true or false.

Pseudocode:

sampleString = "string..."
wordsList = [["box", "five"], [...]]

findMultiWordExists(sampleString, wordsList) {
   for each group of words in wordsList, if they exist in sampleString, return true; else, return false.
}        

Converting Pseudocode to Code with ChatGPT: With this pseudocode, you can ask ChatGPT to generate a program in your preferred language. For example, in Python, the solution might involve using the 'in' keyword to check the existence of the words in the string.

ChatGPT:

JavaScript Implementation: Certainly! To translate your pseudocode into JavaScript, I'll make a few assumptions for clarity. Your pseudocode seems to suggest that you want to check if each pair of words in wordsList exists in sampleString. If both words in any pair are found in sampleString, the function should return true; otherwise, it should return false.

Here's a JavaScript function that implements this logic:

function findMultiWordExists(sampleString, wordsList) {
    for (let i = 0; i < wordsList.length; i++) {
        let pair = wordsList[i];
        if (sampleString.includes(pair[0]) && sampleString.includes(pair[1])) {
            return true;
        }
    }
    return false;
}        

// Example usage

let sampleString = "pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs";

let wordsList = [["box", "five"], ["pack", "jugs"]]; // Add more pairs as needed

let result = findMultiWordExists(sampleString, wordsList);

console.log(result); // This will log 'true' if any pair is found in the string, otherwise 'false'

This function iterates through each pair in wordsList and checks if both words in the pair exist in sampleString. If it finds a pair where both words are present in sampleString, it returns true. If no such pair is found after checking all pairs, it returns false.

Correcting the Generated Code: The above code snippet generated contains one problem. It is assumed that word pairs will always be two. This is where the individual programmer in you should kick in to correct the code or simply reframe it to check for a variable number of words that match.

Subsequent Interaction with ChatGPT:

You: Let wordsList have a variable number of words.

ChatGPT: If the word count in each group within wordsList is not fixed to two, and you want to check if all words in any given group are present in sampleString, you'll need to modify the function. The revised function should loop through each list within wordsList and check if every word in that list is present in sampleString.

Here's an updated version of your function to handle this scenario:

function findMultiWordExists(sampleString, wordsList) {
    for (let group of wordsList) {
        if (group.every(word => sampleString.includes(word))) {
            return true;
        }
    }
    return false;
}        

let sampleString = "pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs";

let wordsList = [["box", "five"], ["pack", "jugs"], ["my", "with", "dozen"]];

let result = findMultiWordExists(sampleString, wordsList);

console.log(result); // Logs 'true' if all words in any group are found, otherwise 'false'

In this version, group.every(word => sampleString.includes(word)) checks if every word in the current group (group) is included in sampleString. The function returns true if all words in any group are found in sampleString. If no such group is found, it returns false.

It is possible that if I had provided pseudocode with a variable word count in the first place, ChatGPT would have generated the right code. I kept it fixed-count to show how follow-on communication makes it easy to get the desired output.

Benefits of using pseudocode:

• Clarity: It helps in clearly defining the problem statement.
• Language Agnostic: You can get help in any programming language without being an expert in it.
• Efficiency: AI can provide more accurate and relevant code snippets, saving time and effort.

Embracing pseudocode when seeking programming help from AI tools like ChatGPT not only streamlines the problem-solving process but also enhances your understanding of the algorithmic approach. This practice benefits both beginners and experienced programmers alike.