Summary: It has actually been a few months since my site came into existence. But being a newcomer to Lemmy I thought I’d post my experience once again here.

I had close to zero experience in web site development. I had never written a line of code in PHP nor used a PostgreSQL database, let alone creating and managing one.

However, I thought this lack of experience made me a good candidate to test just how powerful ChatGPT is. After two weeks of on-and-off construction, I finally completed a completely functional website that serves as an “online guest book” and is open for everyone to try out. A feat that I probably could never have achieved without any help.

Here are some of the amazing highlights of how ChatGPT helped:

  • Debugging - I took the approach of using a website design software and incorporating snippets provided by ChatGPT. Very often, that would lead to unknown errors, and I just found myself copying and pasting the entire file and giving one single word of instruction to ChatGPT - debug. Time and again, it managed to pinpoint the errors after a few back and forths.

  • Geolocation and other features - I just told ChatGPT what I wanted to do, and it pointed me in the right direction very quickly. In the case of geolocation, it led me to the right library to use that I had no idea about (geoip geolite2), walked me through the procedure to install it on my NAS, and got it up and running within something like one hour. I am absolutely certain it would have taken me days if not weeks to get it going given my programming background or lack thereof.

  • Backend admin site (that only I get to use so no fancy formatting required) - I did not even have to write a single line of code for it. I just told ChatGPT what I wanted the backend admin site to do, and it churned out 4 files for me just like that (with the usual problem of stopping midway through then having to encourage it to continue). I told ChatGPT what errors I encountered with the files, and it kept revising the code until it started running smoothly after a few tries. Two hours later, the backend admin site was done.

Anyway, give this site a try and see what you think: https://www.stringtone.com. The concept is simple, and all of the intelligence and many of the security measures came directly from ChatGPT.

It has been a fun project, but yes, I still have no clue how I can construct something similar without getting ChatGPT’s help.

  • @mrmanagerAEnglish
    12•11 months ago

    I use chatgpt a lot and it’s often saving me time, but you could not replace a programmer with it. Your company would be helpless as soon as it’s answer is incorrect or buggy, which it often is.

    I view it more like my guide, someone to bounce ideas with and help me do boring tasks like converting one format to another or whatever.

    Sometimes it teaches me the correct format for something too and that saves a lot of time.