Chat GPT for Coding: Strengths and Weaknesses

By: Denton Dickerson

“ChatGPT is incredibly limited but good enough at some things to create a misleading impression of greatness. it’s a mistake to be relying on it for anything important right now. it’s a preview of progress; we have lots of work to do on robustness and truthfulness.” – Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI

 

Chat GPT (General Purpose Tooling), ChatGPT is based on a powerful language model called GPT-3, which enables it to understand natural language and code. Its ability to generate text and complete text-based tasks has made it immensely popular. While its use case for writing blogs and articles is well-documented, Chat GPT has also become an increasingly popular tool for coding. This tooling is designed to automate coding tasks and make coding easier and more efficient. While Chat GPT certainly has its advantages, it also has some drawbacks that should be considered when deciding whether or not to use it for coding. In this blog, we will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of using Chat GPT for coding tasks.

The Strengths of using Chat GPT for Coding

Chat GPT is a tool that uses natural language processing (NLP) to allow developers to quickly and easily write code without having to manually type it out. Here are some of the benefits:

  • Speeds up website development time – With the right prompts and parameters, Chat GPT can write sufficient code to help you develop your website.
  • Enjoy cost savings by reducing time – The time saved from using Chat GPT to code your website results in cost savings.
  • Incredibly easy to use – The GPT 3 model allows users to input natural language prompts to produce complex outputs. Simply, tell Chat GPT what to execute, sit back, and watch the AI magic happen.
  • Assists with website testing – Website testing is an integral part of website development. Use Chat GPT to identify any issues with your website.
  • Facilitates app development – Use Chat GPT as a starting point for any application you want to develop.
  • Debugging becomes more efficient – Fixing coding errors is a specialty for Chat GPT. We’ll circle back to this topic in a bit.

 

Chat GPT for Coding JA

 

 

The Weaknesses of using Chat GPT for Coding

Despite its advantages, there are some drawbacks to using Chat GPT for coding. One of the main drawbacks is the limitations it has. While Chat GPT can automate certain coding tasks, it cannot do everything. It is not able to create complex programs or accurately detect errors in code. Additionally, the accuracy of Chat GPT is not always perfect, as it may produce code that is inefficient or contains errors. Finally, there are some security concerns with using Chat GPT, as it can potentially open up vulnerabilities in code that could be exploited by hackers.

Chat GPT Research

Of course, when it comes to fixing code errors and website issues, automatic program repair (APR) is not new. But how does Chat GPT stack up?

“We find that ChatGPT’s bug fixing performance is competitive to the common deep learning approaches CoCoNut and Codex and notably better than the results reported for the standard program repair approaches,” researchers write in a new arXiv paper, at Cornell University.

The researchers examined ChatGPT’s performance in bug-fixing by testing it on QuixBugs 40 Python-only problems. After manually checking the accuracy of the suggested solutions, the results showed that ChatGPT was on par with other APR methods, solving 19 of the 40 issues. Moreover, the success rate of ChatGPT with follow-up interactions was 77.5%. Nevertheless, the implications for developers in terms of effort and productivity are unclear. Stack Overflow recently prohibited ChatGPT-generated answers because of their low quality, but the Wharton professor suggested that it can be a great assistant to MBA students, helping them to develop critical thinking.

 

In conclusion, Chat GPT can be an incredibly useful tool for coding, but it is important to consider its strengths and weaknesses before deciding to use it. On the plus side, it can save time and money by automating coding tasks, and it is easy to use. On the downside, it has limitations, can be inaccurate, and can create security concerns. If you decide to use Chat GPT for coding, it is important to keep these strengths and weaknesses in mind. Additionally, it is recommended to use it for simple tasks and not for creating complex programs. With this in mind, Chat GPT can be a great tool for speeding up the coding process and making it more efficient.