Somehow populate a dictionary or something I can copy out of the chat window that contains all the data I need.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\nI will continue explaining how I tackled this plan in more detail in a minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s all about the prompts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Obviously, whether or not ChatGPT returns something useful is based on your prompts. It’s the only way you can interact with it. This means, similar to how your Google results are determined by how skillful you are in using Google, you can also help or mislead ChatGPT with your questions (That’s already a small spoiler regarding whether or not I am convinced that ChatGPT alone will replace Swift iOS development or my job as a developer).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, handling ChatGPT might be way easier for a lot of people compared to doing proper Google searches. This is because it accepts natural language. Google instead works best with good keywords and you still have to scroll through the results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is fundamentally different, is that ChatGPT often gives you one answer that might or might not work. Google often leads you to some StackOverflow thread instead where you get some more context via comments. Often enough the code ChatGPT offers you does not even compile. From what I experienced, it’s often not syntactically incorrect but types might be handled wrong, deprecated APIs are used etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Designing your prompts<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Similar to how you would tackle any problem in software development, you also need to do that when talking to ChatGPT. Think of ChatGPT like an iOS colleague with whom you are doing kind of pair programming, willingly helping your Swift development in whatever way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This means we need to give ChatGPT some more constraints to return something useful. E.g. just start with defining a data structure you would like to use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I need a struct representing plant care data with three properties: plantGenus, watering, humidity and lightRequirements <\/pre>\n\n\n\nIt will result in something that works out but is probably not what you really wanted:<\/p>\n\n\n
struct<\/span> PlantCareData<\/span> <\/span>{\n let<\/span> plantGenus: String<\/span>\n let<\/span> watering: String<\/span>\n let<\/span> humidity: String<\/span>\n let<\/span> lightRequirements: String<\/span>\n \n init<\/span>(plantGenus: String<\/span>, watering: String<\/span>, humidity: String<\/span>, lightRequirements: String<\/span>) {\n self<\/span>.plantGenus = plantGenus\n self<\/span>.watering = watering\n self<\/span>.humidity = humidity\n self<\/span>.lightRequirements = lightRequirements\n }\n}<\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> Swift<\/span> (<\/span>swift<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n\n\nAs you can see, all of the properties are Strings<\/code> which is not really great if you think about doing some analytics on these values, creating a UI with icons for each level, etc. What we want is something like an enum<\/code> maybe with different levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\nWith the following prompt I was already hooked. I gave it this quite rudimentary prompt:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Please change the type of watering to an enum that represents the amount of dryness needed before watering, e.g. \u201clet fully dry\u201d. Use four cases that seem to make sense\n<\/pre>\n\n\n\nAs you can see, I only gave it only an example of one case but it came up with something pretty useful:<\/p>\n\n\n
struct<\/span> PlantCareData<\/span> <\/span>{\n let<\/span> plantGenus: String<\/span>\n let<\/span> watering: WateringDryness<\/span>\n let<\/span> humidity: String<\/span>\n let<\/span> lightRequirements: String<\/span>\n \n init<\/span>(plantGenus: String<\/span>, watering: WateringDryness<\/span>, humidity: String<\/span>, lightRequirements: String<\/span>) {\n self<\/span>.plantGenus = plantGenus\n self<\/span>.watering = watering\n self<\/span>.humidity = humidity\n self<\/span>.lightRequirements = lightRequirements\n }\n}\n\nenum<\/span> WateringDryness<\/span>: String<\/span> <\/span>{\n case<\/span> letFullyDry = \"Let fully dry\"<\/span>\n case<\/span> letPartiallyDry = \"Let partially dry\"<\/span>\n case<\/span> letMoist = \"Keep moist\"<\/span>\n case<\/span> waterFrequently = \"Water frequently\"<\/span>\n}<\/code><\/span>Code language:<\/span> Swift<\/span> (<\/span>swift<\/span>)<\/span><\/small><\/pre>\n\n\nThis is pretty awesome already I’d say. Typing the prompts here was way easier than thinking about the cases let alone typing everything of this. However, we are not finished yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course the same works for the other properties as well:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Do something similar with humidity. Use an enum for that property that has six different cases with most common humidities for houseplants.<\/pre>\n\n\n