I have experimented with ChatGPT writing short, simple AppleScript and JavaScript scripts. The task was to rename a selected file in Finder. The AppleScript example written by ChatGPT made a Python call – so it assumed Python was installed. Not necessarily a good assumption. The JavaScript example written by ChatGPT had 4 fatal syntax errors in 20 lines of code.
I hear others have had success, and perhaps one could argue that there is some productivity gain in having the robot write the first pass script and then debugging it, but it doesn’t seem to be a great way to code.
The same way I coded when I was trying to do something I’d never done before – I looked for example programs in the language I wanted to use and made them my starting point. Apparently ChatGPT has been “trained” on lots of program code and has been given enough metadata to extract text that seems to match your request.
I’m a Google Chrome user who has pretty much switched to Bing because of Chat. Other than Chat, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between the two. Both seem bloated to me, but I’m far from an expert on that subject.
Sometimes Bing Chat is amazing. It may get information from multiple sources and coherently organize the information is a useful way, such as a list of steps to take in accomplishing something.
Other times Chat is not so hot. I was researching an event that took place in 2007. It could name only 1 of the 2 Louisiana senators at the time and couldn’t name the congressman from my district. I easily found the information with a Google search, and passed it along to Chat, who was appreciative.
You can have a little fun with it too. After supplying the information about the politicians, I asked Bing Chat if it thought that I could be a chatbot. It listed requirements for chatbots and said maybe I could. I then told it that the information that it couldn’t find came from a Google search. It seemed a little taken aback.
I don’t use it at home on my Mac, but am a fan of it at work on my windows pc. I like the vertical tabs. I’m a trainer so I love the “collections” feature while I’m researching for a class. I like the immersive reading experience, and that you can search for content in a sidebar without leaving the page you’re on.
I stopped using Bing because Microsoft didn’t (as far as I could find) offer the same visibility and controls over the data it is collecting as Google do. I have lifespans after which history will be deleted on Google, for example.
