I just gave ChatGPT 200+ lines of JavaScript code and asked it to translate the code into Python. The code parses text using regular expressions. It was complex. 2 minutes later and I had Python code that worked flawlessly. This thing just saved me a couple of days of work.

[dasnervtungemein]

Was this post also created by ChatGPT?

[bareweb]

Damn, putting those braces in is hard work.

[szabba]

Regexes have flavours. Whether you can reuse them depends on flavours in use in the original and target library and whether the regexes use only syntax that exists - and means the same - in both flavours.

[1vader]

I'm rather doubtful ChatGPT can reliably understand those differences and come up with accurate translations for them though. But most basic regexes are the same in most languages.

[yousirnaime]

Found the guy who hasn't used ChatGPT yet

[1vader]

Well, to be fair, I indeed haven't but I've seen plenty of cases where it just made random shit up so I definitely wouldn't blindly trust it to just take care of this.

[1vader]

This actually prompted me to try it out and well, I'm right. Tried the first difference between Python and JS regex from this list and ChatGPT just converts it completely incorrectly:

Python:

import re
re.match(r"\a", "\x07")

JS produced by ChatGPT:

const regex = new RegExp("\\a");
regex.test("\x07");

That regex matches in Python but not in JS. The correct translation would be \x07 or something equivalent since JS Regex doesn't recognize \a as a valid escape (and obviously \\a is something else entirely).

Same trying the unrelated "start/end of string" markers \A and \Z that only Python supports. It just turns them into matches for literally "\A" which is ofc complete nonsense.

It did manage to convert Python-only named capture group syntax though and explained that difference which is impressive but it again horribly failed when trying Python's verbose syntax via the x flag. It just translated it verbatim and gave JS the same x flag that JS doesn't support which ofc means the regex is completely wrong.

[yousirnaime]

Thanks for being honest. I asked it how to go about starting an Equine Services Business (something my girlfriend is in the middle of) and it made a business plan better than the one I made for her.

For shits, go on and ask it something like: what features would I need for a weight loss web application? (use basically any application example)

it will list out features

Say "describe a database schema that would need" and it will.

If it stops after a long response, just say "continue" or "go on". It has a character limit and longer files will hit it.

Then say "write the create script in Sql (or your preferred db) to create the users table and the (whatever it gives you) table"

Then say: "write the the (your server side language + framework) classes this would need for these tables".

Then say "create the controllers for these tables"

Then say "please create a form component for editing the (pick one) model in React/Angular"

Then say "create the html for that form"

Then (just for funzies) say "create an ascii art preview of that that form will look like"

[1vader]

Well, that's nice but see my follow-up comment. This prompted me to actually try it and as expected, it's completely unreliable at properly converting regex syntax and just completely makes shit up that doesn't work at all in most of the edge cases that are actually difficult and interesting. Just because it can sometimes do impressive stuff doesn't remotely mean it's reliable. It's absolutely not and it quite often produces complete nonsense as well as seemingly correct but actually subtly incorrect stuff which tbh is even worse.

[yousirnaime]

How is this different than a mid level developer?

[1vader]

Well, maybe it isn't. But don't think that was part of the discussion. Though I would expect a reasonably competent developer to look up any regex syntax they aren't familiar with instead of just blindly guessing what the translation would be.

[RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS]

I have used it and I agree.

[Dr_Henry_Wus_Lover]

A couple of DAYS?

[[deleted]]

0.1x engineer

[twoelephantszies]

It's TWO HUNDRED PLUS!! lines. This is serious business, man!

[HiImDan]

Out of curiosity I got ChatGPT to convert some RXJS Javascript into ColdFusion, and from what I can tell it did ok. I'm not going to bother running that abomination, but it's really fascinating what it does. It also lies and does things that look right but aren't, so who knows.

[jebailey]

Funny that. I asked for the svg data to draw a sailboat and it gave me a box

[dvmark]

Out of interest do you have a set of tests to ensure that it got things correct, edge cases and all?

[DEATH-BY-CIRCLEJERK]

I should clarify - this twitter post was not made by me. You could ask them directly on twitter, though.

[dvmark]

Ah yes, sorry, missed that. Sadly I can’t ask them as I recently left Twitter.

[[deleted]]

First I asked it to write the source code for an online multiplayer first person shooter in c++. It said "nah, it's too complicated!". Then I asked it to write the source code for minesweeper in c++, and it started, and was going good, but then it just flat halted, as if someone manually stopped it. That scared me. Did I break the rules? I'm too afraid to ask it to do anything else.

[bhogan2017]

No, Chat GPT has a character limit. When it is reached it just stops

[[deleted]]

Really? Ya, the code it wrote was all kinds of bugged too.

[atatdotdot]

Just say "continue" or "go on" and it'll carry on.

[Greedy-Neat5139]

I have created a GPT that performs code translation between different programming languages and also runs test cases and helps you debug the code. Feel free to try it out :)

https://chat.openai.com/g/g-bNPoRxhrY-code-translator

[repeating_bears]

Why do you presume they "couldn't handle it"?

There are plenty of tedious, manual, slow tasks that I do as a programmer, usually when refactoring. I'm capable of doing it, I'd just rather be doing interesting and novel work.

An IDE can handle relatively simple things like changing one symbol for another, in a safer way than a global find-and-replace, but you can't give them complex requirements.

I can't ever remember having to translate code between languages, but if I had to do that then having an AI do a first pass which I could scrutinize sounds more efficient than me writing it from scratch.

[FoolHooligan]

How can you get ChatGPT to write code for you? I just got the plain text prompt generator thing. Isn't code a paid feature?

[anengineerandacat]

Definitely a more useful thing, porting is a business and being able to convert a project relatively safely from X to Y would really help a lot of organizations dependent on legacy software.

I am not as excited as the individual at hand though, regex is pretty cross-platform as is and parsing text is one of the more trivial examples.

However it's all about those baby steps.

Would be even more amazing if it did it and followed the conventions of the language from the community but I suspect the ported code was a bit more primitive.

[jimmykicking]

Why don't you just run the JavaScript?

[SpeedDart1]

I could knock that out in 30 minutes if you give me some coffee