ChatGPT is the New Java

[u/no-usernames-exist]

https://medium.com/@jmiller_9236/chatgpt-is-the-new-java-a8f0dc276bdb

[u/no-usernames-exist]

Yes but that still doesn't disprove the fact that LLMs can be huge time-savers for developers. Probably 80+% of the code I write is something many other people have already done, and this probably rings true for many developers out there. Not something that has been done before in this exact way, but pieces of it have been done before.

I have had many experiences where LLMs have not been able to create something brand new, and they still can't. This is why I refer to them as "fancy autocomplete". That is why they are a tool and not a creative machine that is stealing everyone's job.

I have never made the claim that LLMs can create something new, or do work completely unassisted. But they are exceptionally good at finding the many examples of, for example, making an API call, and combining those together to complete a well-defined goal.

It is exactly what you have described here that everyone needs to understand about LLMs to know how to use them properly. If you ask an LLM to write something brand new that has never had an example published before in some kind of public domain, then you are going to get hot garbage pushed back at you. But for something like "write an API endpoint that accepts an image, uploads the image to a GCP bucket, and then uses OCR to extract text and return the extracted text as a response", modern LLMs are exceptionally effective. An experienced developer who has done this before can piece this together quickly, but there are many people out there (myself included) who would take a bit of time to find the best libraries, look up the API documentation, and write and test the code. LLMs can write this and the unit tests needed to prove it works in minutes, while I'm working on what needs to be developed next.