being in tech

If there is one thing that I hate like less, it is frontend development. Maybe not as much as I hate dislike databases though.

So I thought this was the best first thing to outsource to copilot. Whether or not one can use chatgpt or copilot (from here on shall just be named AI for brevity) to build an app from ground up with no background on programming at all, I can’t really answer. But if you have a general idea of how code should work, I think you can go pretty far with AI by your side.

Personally, I like stepping into an already set up front end project and have no proper experience of setting one up from scratch. But from the many projects that I’ve had to support, I have a general idea that frontend has components and routes etc. I never really paid attention because there was always someone on the team that LOVED frontend. I can happily build components and leave all the juicy details to them.

But with this project, there is no one else but me.. and AI!

Granted my app is quite simple, but I was able to feed a swagger file and ask for a component and it actually came up with something useable.

I like how co-pilot not just gives the code but actually explains how the code works. It took a lot of trial and error though, maybe not as much as it would have taken if it was just me and google.

The downside is that the responses seemed to be outdated, the code provided was mostly from a previous version. Probably not so surprising as frontend tends to develop much faster.

I found myself copy pasting code and then googling the error message to find the updated code to paste back it. Still, AI provided a good starting point.

Maybe someone with focus on frontend or UX might have a different opinion but for me with a goal of building an MVP, it’s not terrible. I can get myself to a point where the code works and that’s good enough for me.

I really like co-pilot so far, when it comes to getting some help with things that you’re not an expert in or things you have a high-level understanding of. I like how it explains things and helps me build the stuff i’m not interested in but also help me learn more about it, and maybe get me a little bit more interested in said boring things.