How ChatGPT can assist with software development

As software development becomes increasingly complex, developers are constantly looking for ways to streamline their workflows and improve productivity. One exciting new development in this field is the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT. By leveraging the power of AI, developers can achieve faster, more efficient coding, testing, and deployment processes, ultimately resulting in better software products.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a language model developed by OpenAI that uses deep learning algorithms to generate human-like text responses to natural language input.

In other words, it’s an AI-powered chatbot that can carry on a conversation with humans in a way that feels natural and intuitive.

While ChatGPT was originally designed for use in chatbots and customer service applications, it has many potential applications in software development as well.

Streamlining the coding process

One key benefit of using ChatGPT in software development is that it can help streamline the coding process. Developers can use the chatbot to quickly generate code snippets or templates for common programming tasks.

For example, if a developer needs to create a new function or method, they can simply describe what they want the function to do in natural language, and ChatGPT can generate the code for them. This can save a significant amount of time and effort compared to writing the code manually.

Providing assistance with coding tasks

ChatGPT can help developers with their coding tasks by providing them with suggestions, hints, and explanations. This can help them write cleaner and more efficient code while also improving their coding skills. For instance, if a developer is unsure of the correct syntax or method to use, they can ask ChatGPT for help, and it can provide them with an explanation or code sample.

Assistance with testing and debugging

Another way that ChatGPT can be useful in software development is by providing assistance with testing and debugging. Developers can describe the behaviour they expect from their code, and the chatbot can help identify errors or suggest fixes. This can be particularly useful for complex or hard-to-reproduce bugs, where having an extra set of eyes can help uncover the root cause of the problem.

Automating the deployment process

ChatGPT can also be used to automate the deployment process, which can be a time-consuming and error-prone task. Developers can describe the deployment steps they want to take, and the chatbot can execute them automatically. This can help ensure that the deployment process is consistent and error-free, reducing the risk of issues arising in production.

Automatically generating documentation

Another potential use case for ChatGPT in software development is in documentation. Developers can describe the functionality of their code in natural language, and the chatbot can generate documentation automatically. This can save time and effort compared to writing documentation manually, while also ensuring that the documentation is consistent and accurate.

Limitations of ChatGPT

Of course, like any AI tool, ChatGPT has its limitations. While it can generate code snippets and templates, it is not yet capable of creating entire applications from scratch. Additionally, it may not be able to understand complex or highly technical descriptions of code behaviour, and may not always provide the most efficient or optimized code.

Ethical and societal implications

It is important to remember that AI is still a relatively new technology, and there are potential ethical and societal implications that must be considered. For example, there is the risk of bias or discrimination in the data used to train AI models and the potential for AI to replace human jobs. Developers should take care to ensure that they are using AI tools ethically and responsibly.

Conclusion

In conclusion, ChatGPT is a powerful new tool that can assist with various aspects of software development, from coding and testing to deployment and documentation. By leveraging the power of AI, developers can achieve faster and more efficient workflows, ultimately resulting in better software products.

As AI technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see even more innovative applications of AI in software development. For example, there are already AI tools that can automatically generate UI layouts, design logos, or even create entire websites. Developers who are open to using AI tools like ChatGPT may be able to gain a competitive advantage by achieving faster development times, better code quality, and more efficient workflows.

Nonetheless, it is important to strike a balance between leveraging the benefits of AI and ensuring that the technology is used ethically and responsibly. As AI becomes more ubiquitous in software development, developers must stay informed about the latest advancements and strive to incorporate them into their workflows in a way that benefits both themselves and society as a whole.

ChatGPT is an exciting new development in the world of software development. While there are limitations to what ChatGPT can do, its potential benefits are significant. As AI technology continues to evolve, we can expect to see even more innovative applications of AI in software development, paving the way for a more efficient and productive future.

Wait a minute…

As you read this article, did anything stand out to you?

Yes, you guessed it, the above content wasn’t written by a human, it was written by AI. ChatGPT generated all of the text in the preceding sections instead of me!

If you’ve read any of my articles before you might have suspected something, but if not, you may not have noticed that it wasn’t written by a human given the natural language that is generated.

Generating the article

To generate this article I opened the ChatGPT web app and asked the following question.

Can you write a blog article about how ChatGPT can assist with software development that is written in a style matching articles written at jonathancrozier.com?

I then asked a simple follow-up question as follows.

Can you add headings?

That’s really all there was to it! The only other things I did were to add some formatting, hyperlinks, and images.

It is quite astounding what AI language models like ChatGPT are now capable of!

It’s important to note that the current version of ChatGPT at the time of writing doesn’t have real-time access to the Internet and its language model was trained on a data set from September 2021. Fortunately, I’ve been blogging since October 2019, so it looks like ChatGPT may have access to data about my website which influenced the writing style of the article. However, whether this is actually the case or not I’m not entirely sure at this point!

Looking to the future

I’ve never used AI to generate any of my blog article content prior to this article (promise!). However, it does strike me that some may find it somewhat intimidating to see what these systems are now capable of.

It’s inevitable that in the future we’re going to see AI play a much more active role in our lives, in a similar way to how smartphones have revolutionised how we now operate on a day-to-day basis. It will be very interesting to see how general software development evolves in line with the increased sophistication of AI.

In short, I believe it’s going to be vitally important that software developers get involved now and keep up to date with how systems like ChatGPT are evolving to make sure one does not get left behind.

A quick example

Before wrapping up, I want to walk through a practical example of how ChatGPT can help us out when writing software.

Let’s try asking ChatGPT the following question.

Given the following array of data, can you write a C# method that will return a string containing the book’s title followed by a comma-separated list of authors but with an ‘and’ included before the last author if there is more than one author?

```csharp
var books = new Book[] 
{ 
    new Book()
    {
        Title = "Clean Code",
        Authors = new string[] 
        {
            "Robert C. Martin"
        }
    },
    new Book()
    {
        Title = "The Pragmatic Programmer",
        Authors = new string[]
        {
            "David Thomas",
            "Andrew Hunt"
        }
    },
    new Book()
    {
        Title = "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs",
        Authors = new string[]
        {
            "Harold Abelson",
            "Gerald Jay Sussman",
            "Julie Sussman"
        }
    }
};

ChatGPT responds with the following.

Sure! Here’s a C# method that takes in an array of Book objects and returns a string containing the book’s title followed by a comma-separated list of authors with an ‘and’ included before the last author if there is more than one author:

public static string GetBookInfo(Book[] books)
{
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
 
    foreach (Book book in books)
    {
        sb.Append(book.Title);
        sb.Append(" by ");
 
        int numAuthors = book.Authors.Length;
 
        for (int i = 0; i < numAuthors; i++)
        {
            sb.Append(book.Authors[i]);
 
            if (i < numAuthors - 2)
            {
                sb.Append(", ");
            }
            else if (i == numAuthors - 2)
            {
                sb.Append(" and ");
            }
        }
 
        sb.AppendLine();
    }
 
    return sb.ToString();
}

This method uses a StringBuilder object to build the final string. It loops through each Book object in the array, appends the book’s title to the StringBuilder, and then loops through the authors, appending each one to the StringBuilder with a comma separator. If there are more than two authors, an ‘and’ is included before the last author. Finally, a newline character is added to separate each book’s information. The method then returns the final string.

You can call this method like this:

string bookInfo = GetBookInfo(books);
Console.WriteLine(bookInfo);

This will output:

Clean Code by Robert C. Martin
The Pragmatic Programmer by David Thomas and Andrew Hunt
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs by Harold Abelson, Gerald Jay Sussman, and Julie Sussman

Hmm, it’s pretty impressive that ChatGPT was able to do this and awesome to not only get an explanation of the code but also an example of how to call it, along with the output. However, I’m thinking that we could do better…

Let’s ask a follow-up question.

Can you refactor this to use a switch expression?

ChatGPT now responds as follows.

Sure, here’s the same C# method refactored to use a switch expression to handle the different cases for the number of authors:

public static string GetBookInfo(Book[] books)
{
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
 
    foreach (Book book in books)
    {
        sb.Append(book.Title);
        sb.Append(" by ");
 
        int numAuthors = book.Authors.Length;
 
        string authorString = numAuthors switch
        {
            0 => "",
            1 => book.Authors[0],
            2 => string.Join(" and ", book.Authors),
            _ => string.Join(", ", book.Authors[0..^1]) + $", and {book.Authors[^1]}"
        };
 
        sb.Append(authorString);
        sb.AppendLine();
    }
 
    return sb.ToString();
}

In this version of the method, a switch expression is used to determine how to construct the string containing the list of authors. The switch expression matches on the value of numAuthors, which is the number of authors for the current book, and returns a string that represents the list of authors for that book.

In the first case where numAuthors is 0, an empty string is returned. In the second case where numAuthors is 1, the single author’s name is returned. In the third case where numAuthors is 2, a string is constructed with ” and ” between the two authors’ names. In the final case, where numAuthors is greater than 2, a comma-separated list of authors is constructed with ” and ” between the last two authors’ names.

The switch expression is used to set the authorString variable, which is then appended to the StringBuilder object along with the book’s title. Finally, a newline character is added to separate each book’s information. The method then returns the final string.

Now that’s pretty cool! 😎

Even if the code isn’t exactly as you might like it or isn’t doing precisely what you need it to, it isn’t hard to ask ChatGPT to make some tweaks or just apply any minor changes that you require by hand.

Final conclusion

Ok, this is it, the real conclusion!

If you haven’t used ChatGPT yet, I urge you to give it a try right now. Head over to chat.openai.com and create a free account to get started. Once you’re logged in, type a message, press the Send button and see what happens!

In a future article, I’m planning to look at ChatGPT further in a software development context and provide examples of questions that I personally find helpful to ask to help improve quality and productivity.


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