I had good results by writing my requirements like they were very, high-level code. I told it specifically what to do. Like formal specifications but with no math or logic. I usually defined the classes or data structures, too. I’d also tell it what libraries to use after getting their names from a previous, exploratory question.
From there, I’d ask it to do one modification at a time to the code. I’d be very precise. I’d give it only my definitions and just the function I wanted it to modify. It would screw things up whereby I’d tell it that. It would fix its errors, break working code with hallucinations, and so on. You need to be able to spot these problems to know when to stop asking it about a given function.
I was able to use ChatGPT 3.5 for most development. GPT 4 was better for work needed high creativity or lower hallucinations. I wrote whole programs with it that were immensely useful, including a HN proxy for mobile. Eventually, ChatGPT got really dumb while outputting less and less code. It even told me to hire someone several times (?!). That GPT-3-Davinci helped a lot suggests it’s their fine-tuning and system prompt causing problems (eg for safety).
The original methods I suggested should work, though. You want to use a huge, code-optimized model for creativity or hard stuff, though. Those for iteration, review, etc can be cheaper.
From there, I’d ask it to do one modification at a time to the code. I’d be very precise. I’d give it only my definitions and just the function I wanted it to modify. It would screw things up whereby I’d tell it that. It would fix its errors, break working code with hallucinations, and so on. You need to be able to spot these problems to know when to stop asking it about a given function.
I was able to use ChatGPT 3.5 for most development. GPT 4 was better for work needed high creativity or lower hallucinations. I wrote whole programs with it that were immensely useful, including a HN proxy for mobile. Eventually, ChatGPT got really dumb while outputting less and less code. It even told me to hire someone several times (?!). That GPT-3-Davinci helped a lot suggests it’s their fine-tuning and system prompt causing problems (eg for safety).
The original methods I suggested should work, though. You want to use a huge, code-optimized model for creativity or hard stuff, though. Those for iteration, review, etc can be cheaper.