NgSysV2-4.1: The Age of AI - Meet your Digital Tutor

Here are a few tips:

• Be respectful. As far as I know, the bot is indifferent to abuse, but I believe that using a courteous style will affect your perception of the "relationship". This will have beneficial consequences for the quality of your questions. You might think this weird, but I believe it helps to hold a mental image of the bot as a person. In my mind, chatGPT looks a bit like Robin Williams in "Dead Poets Society".


• Take care with the construction of your questions. While chatGPT tolerates mis-spellings and grammatical errors, you'll get better answers if you make your queries unambiguous.


• Be persistent. If you don't understand something, ask for more details. Because chatGPT has "memory" you can have what feels like a genuine conversation. Even better, when you finally get the issue straightened out, this frequently ends up with a morale-boosting "well done" from the bot. I'm ridiculously grateful when, after a long, stumbling conversation, I'm rewarded with a "that's a great insight" response. If you're travelling alone on your IT journey, chatGPT makes a terrific difference.


• But don't push it too far. Be prepared to break off while you think through what you've been told. Take a walk and get some fresh air. Maybe leave things to simmer overnight. It's amazing what a good night's sleep can do.

Here are some examples of specific questions you might ask:

• What does this {Javascript code statement] do?


• what does [Technical term] mean?


• How might I do [procedure description] in Javascript?


• Please give me a short tutorial on [Coding issue]?


• The following code [block of code] is meant to do this [statement of intent] but it does the other [statement of actual result]. Can you explain why, please?


• What CSS styling will place a popup in the centre of the screen?


• Why does the following code [block of code] give this error message [error message]


• In answer to an earlier question you said [previous chatGPT statement] but [statement of possibly contradictory evidence]


• I believe [statement of your belief]. Is this correct?


• could you comment on the accuracy and completeness of the following [statement of your ideas]?

ChatGPT's answers won't always be correct, especially when you get onto recent topics where its training opportunities will have been limited. Be prepared to do cross-checks using a search engine. In my experience, chatGPT is much more reliable than either Bing or Gemini, but it still gets things wrong. With experience, I think you'll find that you can somehow tell that it's "blagging" you. When challenged and presented with clear evidence that puts it clearly in the wrong it will respond with "I'm sorry about the confusion in my previous answer". That always makes my day!

I hope the two of you have a great time. ChatGPT will save you a ton of trouble.

3. Notes on using Code-generation Chatbots

Frankly, at this stage in your career, it would be best if you forgot about any serious use of AI code generation. You need to develop an instinct for good coding practice and this will only come through writing it yourself. But that said (and I'll be the first to admit that using an AI assistant to write console.log messages has saved me heaps of time), here are a few pointers.

If you're using VSCode as your code editor, the obvious AI assistant is Microsoft's Copilot tool. But be prepared to invest up to $100 per annum here.

Microsoft called their tool "Copilot" because a common practice in coding shops was for developers to work in pairs. A lead programmer would be assigned a "copilot" to do the "grunt" work. This worked really well - the leader would be free to concentrate on the tricky stuff and the copilot would learn basic skills from someone who knew what they were doing.

Once you feel you've learnt all the basic coding skills - naming conventions, composability, separation of concerns, "dry" (don't repeat yourself) and are a world-expert in Javascript syntax, etc, you may feel you're qualified to take a lead role. At this point, Copilot is magic! Here are a few notes about using it.

Copilot is installed as a VSCode "plugin". Plugins provide extensions to the editor's basic functionality. For example, the VSCode "Rewrap" plugin keeps my comment lines formatted within a fixed line length and saves me hours of cursing. They're usually free, being written by wonderful people who want to make other people's lives easier.

Instructions for installing Copilot can be found at .