ChatGPT is a language model designed to understand and generate natural language text, making it a powerful tool for software developers. ChatGPT is trained with all popular programming language syntax and semantic. It is also trained with algorithms, design patterns and lots of open source code examples. These capabilities make ChatGPT the best AI assistant for software developers. In this blog post, we will discuss seven ways that ChatGPT can help software developers improve their productivity and effectiveness.
1. Code Generation for Specified Problem Statement
ChatGPT can be very handy for generating code snippets for clearly defined problem statement in various programming languages like Python, Java, JavaScript, and more. Developers can provide a description of their problem, and ChatGPT can suggest code snippets that may be used to solve the problem. We can then use that code snippet in out project.
For example, I requested Chat GPT to generate code for bubble sort algorithm in Python. Following is the response I received which is good enough to just copy and use.
Following is the code snippet generated by ChatGPT. There was also examples on how the code can be used and tested.
2. Finding Bug in Existing Code and Suggest Fix
ChatGPT can be used to identify and help to find and fix bugs in your code. Developers can provide ChatGPT with a description of the issue, and ChatGPT will suggest possible solutions based on the programming language, libraries, and frameworks used in the code. Not only ChatGPT can help us with solving compilation problems, but it can also help us finding logical issues, infinite loops, incorrect coding standards etc.
I provided the following Java code sample to ChatGPT and asked to suggest the fix. As you can see from the screenshots below, I requested ChatGPT to fix the code I wrote to create a multi threaded adder in Java that will add a list of numbers by dividing them in smaller lists and then finally adding the results.
As you can see from above screenshots, ChatGPT was able to fix the faulty code and also provided an explanation on why that was the right approach. It even understood the purpose of the code from the code sample without had to provide more inputs on that.
3. Generate Documentation for Existing Code
ChatGPT can be used to generate documentation for existing software projects. Developers can provide ChatGPT with descriptions of classes, functions, and methods, and ChatGPT can generate documentation based on the provided descriptions.
/**
* Adds up the numbers in the given list using multi-threading if the thread count is specified.
*
* @param numbers The list of numbers to be added
* @param threadCount The number of threads to use for multi-threading (can be null)
* @return The sum of the numbers
*/
public static Long add(List<Long> numbers, Integer threadCount) {
Long result = 0L;
// Determine thread count based on input list size (if not provided as input)
if (threadCount == null && numbers.size() > MINIMUM_SIZE_FOR_MULTI_THREADING) {
threadCount = numbers.size() / RECORD_COUNT_PER_THREAD;
}
if (threadCount > 0) {// use multi-threading
CountDownLatch latch = new CountDownLatch(threadCount);
List<Thread> threads = new ArrayList<>();
for (int i = 0; i < threadCount; i++) {
int startIndex = i * RECORD_COUNT_PER_THREAD;
int endIndex = Math.min(startIndex + RECORD_COUNT_PER_THREAD, numbers.size());
List<Long> subList = numbers.subList(startIndex, endIndex);
Thread adderThread = new Thread(() -> {
Long sum = add(subList);
synchronized (result) {
result += sum;
}
latch.countDown();
});
threads.add(adderThread);
adderThread.start();
}
// Wait for all threads to complete
try {
latch.await();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
}
} else {
result = add(numbers);
}
return result;
}
/**
* Adds up the numbers in the given list.
*
* @param numbers The list of numbers to be added
* @return The sum of the numbers
*/
private static Long add(List<Long> numbers) {
Long sum = 0L;
for (Long number : numbers) {
sum += number;
}
return sum;
}
4.Explaining a Code
When you have joined a new project, learning a new programming language or learning a new concept, sometimes we face difficulty in understanding what the code is doing. ChatGPT can be very handy in those situations.
As an example, I asked ChatGPT to explain following method in SpringApplication class from Spring framework:
private Optional<Class<?>> findMainClass(Stream<StackFrame> stack) {
return stack.filter((frame) -> Objects.equals(frame.getMethodName(), "main"))
.findFirst()
.map(StackWalker.StackFrame::getDeclaringClass);
}
Someone new to Java functional programming will find it difficult to understand what the code is doing. I got following response from ChatGPT which is really like a peer developer or mentor explaining the concepts to you. Think about how much time this will save for your tech lead on this and at the same time make you less embarrassed to always ask such questions which seems trivial but very important to you.
5. Learning a Topic
ChatGPT can act as a virtual instructor available to you at every moment. Just start by asking about the topic you want to learn. When you create a chat conversion, ChatGPT remembers previous questions and it has the full context. Therefore, subsequent question answers will look like you are making a conversion on the topic.
Lets take an example that you want to learn about Streams API in Java which was introduced in Java 8 and completely changed the way Java programmers used to write code. This introduced functional programming concepts in Java.
As per my experience ChatGPT can help you learn faster than just browsing random posts in web and even faster than using a online course or tutorial or book.
Apart for the points mentioned above, ChatGPT can help in creating user interface design, machine learning model creation, natuaral language processing etc.
In conclusion, ChatGPT is a powerful tool that can help software developers in various ways. It can be used for code generation, bug fixing, documentation generation, natural language processing, user interface design, machine learning model creation, and knowledge management. With its natural language processing capabilities, ChatGPT can help software developers save time and improve their productivity, making it an invaluable tool for developers.
