How to Write Code with ChatGPT
As we all know, ChatGPT is a large language model (LLM) that is trained on a wide variety of massive data. It includes data from general knowledge, common sense, reasoning, mathematical problems, coding, and more. Just like you canuse ChatGPT to write essays, you can also use it to write code and several other tasks. In this tutorial, we are specifically going to learn about coding and how we can write code with ChatGPT. We have discussed ChatGPT coding prompts with an app demo and explained other solutions like GitHub Copilot X and CodeGPT. On that note, let’s jump into the article.
ChatGPT Prompts to Write Code with Examples
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To begin, you can start with something simple. You can simply ask ChatGPT towrite code in your favorite language. It will output the code immediately. You can also use “implement” in place of “write code”.
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You can alsodefine the role of ChatGPTin the beginning to get better code output. Here is an example, which will trigger chain-of-thought reasoning to deliver a better response from ChatGPT.
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For a demo, we asked ChatGPT tocreate an Android appthat reminds users to drink water after regular intervals. And it started explaining everything from scratch, including which IDE to use, which SDK level to target, use either Java or Kotlin, and more.
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When I was unsure which option to pick, I simply asked ChatGPT, whichsummarized everythingfor me in a simple manner.
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Finally, once we put all the tools in place, we asked ChatGPT towrite the code in Kotlin. It generated the code for an Android app targeting Android 7.0 and above API level.
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Of course, we faced many errors on the first run, but weused ChatGPT to troubleshootthe errors as well. You can simply paste the error message into ChatGPT, and the AI bot will analyze the issue and fix the error. You can also paste the whole code block into ChatGPT, asking the AI to look for errors or issues.
Note: Keep in mind that the free version of ChatGPT (3.5) often produces code that results in errors. If you are using ChatGPT 4, you are likely to get better output.
- And after many back-and-forth attempts, we couldfinally run the app. Although it’s a barebones app, the fact that you can code and create apps using ChatGPT without any prior knowledge is bonkers. Sure, you need to have some degree of coding knowledge and logical understanding, especially when you are developing Android apps, but generally, ChatGPT makes programming very accessible to general users.
GitHub Copilot X: Write Code with ChatGPT
You can also use the power of ChatGPT for writing code in GitHub directly. The new GitHub Copilot X tool is powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 model which is one of the most powerful programming models out there. It can help you write an entire function in real time, explain thecode in natural language, find errors, and offer context-aware suggestionsas well. In addition, it supports pull requests and can automate a lot of tasks using AI.
Not just that, with GitHub Copilot, you can focus more on important code blocks andspend less time on repetitive codepatterns where Copilot can quickly complete the code. In addition, you can write your logic in natural language as a comment and it will instantly implement the solution. You can also integrate Copilot on Visual Studio, Neovim, VS Code, JetBrains IDEs, and more.
Some of the popularlanguages itsupports are C, C++, C#, Go, Java, JavaScript,PHP, Python, Ruby, Scala, TypeScript, and more. If you are a developer, I think GitHub Copilot X is better suited for you than ChatGPT as it’s tailored only for programming. GitHub Copilot X is currently in technical preview, and you can sign up for the private betaright here. It will cost you $10 per month. It’s one of the coolest newChatGPT alternatives, alongside Amazon CodeWhisperer.
Use CodeGPT in VS Code to Get Help Writing Code
Apart from ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot X, CodeGPT is another project that leverages the power of OpenAI’s GPT language model to help you write code. It’s afree extension available in VS Codethat can make programming much more productive and helpful for you. The best part is that you can use the latest GPT-4 model along with the GPT-3.5 model, just like Copilot X. That said, you must haveGPT-4 APIaccess in order to use theChatGPT 4 model.
In my testing of theCodeGPT extension, I found it to be quite useful. It can generate code with just a comment, explain functions and code snippets, refactor the code, write documentation, and do much more. What I value the most issolving errors with CodeGPT. You can select a code block, right-click on it and ask CodeGPT to find problems. It will contextually go through the code and respond with a possible solution. All of this is done through the OpenAI API key which you will have to buy once the free credit is exhausted. All in all, if you use VS Code as your IDE, I will highly suggest checking out CodeGPT.
Arjun Sha
Passionate about Windows, ChromeOS, Android, security and privacy issues. Have a penchant to solve everyday computing problems.
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