Weekly Bytes

ChatGPT Gets a Programming Canvas?

October 9, 2024

Hello there,

It seems like every week now A.I. gets some new feature catered towards software developers and this time around, the specific feature added isn't designed to take our jobs.

ChatGPT now comes with a programming canvas, and so far, so great. I've been testing it out for the week and so far, outside of a few crashes here and there, it's been a much better way to work with the code within the ChatGPT interface.

The new interface is essentially a split view, with the left side continuing to work as your prompting form while the right side houses the generated code output. But the biggest benefit is that the code is now generated independent of the prompt interface, meaning that you can modify the code without having to scroll up continuously to see what changes have been made.

There is also a built-in code review feature that will run through the code in the canvas and create hovering suggestion cards on the right. And to keep adding to the grandeur of the whole thing, you can even apply the suggestions mentioned in these cards with a single button click.

You can also port to a different language, finally, through a new sub-menu interface. The current languages supported are PHP, C++, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript and Java.

Really the best part of this new interface is the fact that it doesn't really involve prompting of any kind. It's all done through the traditional button and toggle interface elements that we are so used to.

Prompting is great for certain things, sure. For doing research, or help with homework or answering a simple question. But sometimes, a button does a much better job than my prompts ever could.

You can read the full press-release here, to find out a bit about how this feature came to be. Currently the canvas is still in beta and you will need to be a Plus or Enterprise subscriber in order to use it. But as with most other ChatGPT features, eventually it will probably become generally available to everyone.

✌️

-- Walt

My latest posts

Check out the latest articles published on the blog:

​

• ​What are JavaScript Proxies and how do they work?​
• ​How to effectively use useCallback in React​
• ​A Look at the Drag and Drop API in JavaScript​
• ​How to Generate GUID's using just JavaScript​
• ​How to Show PDF file Upload Previews​

​

​

​

​

Weekly Question

Q: How do you get over imposter syndrome?

When I taught for a coding bootcamp a few years ago, one of the main questions that people early in their career would ask me is "When do you feel like you're good at this?". 'this' being a generalized word for a vast field known as software development. A field that encompasses thousands of industries, hundreds of languages and that is constantly changing every single year.

And that's a tough question to answer. Because it is kind of subjective to some extent, but it's also up to your employer as well (if you have one). If your company likes your work, pays you a healthy salary and promotes you often, then it's safe to say that you're doing something right. Or maybe you just have a really good job.

If work is challenging, you miss deadlines often and you haven't been promoted since before the internet was a thing, then maybe feeling like you're not there yet is valid as well. Or maybe you just have a really bad job.

In which case, maybe imposter syndrome is tied more to what you're doing than how you're doing it.

For me personally, it took around 6-7 years of corporate work before I felt like I could tackle most programming tasks at that particular job. That's when my title changed to Sr. Programmer and when I was in charge of bigger projects for this specific company.

Then I went to a new company, had to learn a few new frameworks and languages, and felt the pangs of being a novice again, at least for a little while. Which I suppose leads to my actual answer finally of "after some years, you'll feel like you're good at parts of it, until you do something else where you'll revert back a little temporarily".

Not the most satisfying answer for most people, but to me personally, it's kind of the most concise answer that I have after 20+ years of programming.

Have a question? You can submit it here and I might answer it in the next newsletter.

That's all for now. Until we meet again next week 👋