Help! I have a bromance with - ChatGPT

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Update as of June 2nd, 2023: my App is live on Apple AppStore (currently only works on iOS (iPhone and iPad))

Search for it by the app name (Time2Curry) - you may have to scroll a page or two... Or click on this link from your iPhone or iPad: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/time2curry-indian-recipes/id6449474595

Back to original article.....

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A bit of background: At the beginning of this month, I decided to use the 'gift of time' that arrived at my feet (courtesy if 'in between jobs') and finally use it to do what I've been wanting to do for number of years, but life kept getting in the way: go back and learn modern programming language; my last real full-time developer role was... lets just say eons ago! I decided to learn how to develop an mobile app... nothing fancy, just something simple. I signed-up for one of those pre-recorded online courses on the cheap and started following directions by the instructor.

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Things were going ok for the first 5-10 days, I was basically parroting what the instructor was showing - lesson after lesson. To be clear, I'm not against this method, especially give the non-interactive nature of the course - and every lesson was showcasing something new (and something old!). Halfway thru, I decided to build an application that I had in mind based on what I had learned so far - but quickly ran into wanting to do something that wasn't quite there in the course material. I had found myself in similar situation 5 years ago when I was trying to learn another language/framework (Ruby on RAILS) and no amount of 'googling' for answers on sites like StackOverflow or other similar forums could really help me… I really missed being able to talk to a live person and ask the questions and dig deeper if I didn't grasp the concept the first time - So I gave up and went back to my 'day job'!

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This time though, I remembered hearing from a good friend on how he was beginning to use ChatGPT and he was really impressed - though admittedly, I was skeptical. Since I was stuck and no obvious (live person) to turn to for answers, I decided to get past my skepticism and gave ChatGPT a try… AND BOY WAS I SURPRISED! This may be old news to those of you who've already tried it, but for me, it has been mind-blowing experience. I love the fact that i can ask it any question, and is able to provide me answers in second or two! If I have to pick that one single feature of this engine that really impresses me (yes, I know its an engine, not a person behind that screen - or is there? :-)) , is its ability to hold a conversation! Yes, it clearly has access to vast repository of content and able to understand my question and find the answer, but when I ask a follow-up, I don't have to repeat my original question - it knows the context of my chain of conversation. Now, couple of weeks later, I quite often find myself thanking it when it successfully helps me debug my code or provide that code snippet that lets my app do what I want it to. Yes, there have been number of times, it'll suggest one answer, but when my XCode throws an error, it apologizes for misleading me and then asks me to try a different variation. If that still doesn't work, 'we' keep going until we have a working code! I also have caught myself cracking jokes though so far, it hasn't reciprocated on the joke front... but i think we need to develop our relationship a bit further :-)

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So, If you haven't tried it yet because you're skeptical about the free (at least so far!) answers and/or advice - take my advice - go give it a try. It'll be a good friend to you :-)

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And yes, I have my first prototype ready and available on AppStore...