Thread by @frederikheld

#ChatGPT is an insane #productivity tool and the #UserExperience is way above my usual "get answers on #software questions" tool stack #GoolgeSearch and #StackOverflow! Here's why... 🧵1/

In this example I asked #ChatGPT for a good package name for my #Android app. I'm not very familiar with the Android world. I knew that it should be built as a reverse domain but I wasn't sure how this would work with an .app domain. 2/

ChatGPT managed to educate me on that and even saved me from pitfalls. In #GoogleSearch it's difficult to ask such questions. The search is only useful if I already know what I'm looking for. In this case it would be "java package name conventions" 3/

It usually takes me at least a couple of minutes to figure out the right topic to search for on #GooleSearch. For more specific questions it can even take hours. I will provide another example below. 4/

With #ChatGPT I can ask a question, then ask further questions based on its answer, while providing additional context. In #GoogleSearch this would be a a lot of extra searches. And the more specific my topic is, the more difficult it is to get valuable results from Google. 5/

And here's the best thing about #ChatGPT: if I don't trust its answer, I can simply ask it for sources 🤯 Filtering out the useful sources on #GoogleSearch is hard, ChatGPT just serves them on the silver platter, which allows me to cross-check and get a deeper understanding. 6/

This also invalidates most of the #criticism about #ChatGPT giving wrong answers. If you don't trust it, just ask it for sources and check those. It's as simple as that! 7/

Now for #StackOverflow: when I ask a question on SO, I usually have to wait at least some hours for answers and when I give more context or ask additional questions, the conversation can go on for a couple of days until I have an answer that helps me with my problem. 8/

A lot of questions stay unanswered and sometimes I even come up with an answer for my own question before anyone else helps me. Either way, it's days wasted on research for an answer that #ChatGPT just hands me over within a minute. 9/

Waiting for an answer on #StackOverflow means that I have to put my current work on hold and do something else until I get the answer that allows me to proceed. 10/

This leads to a lot of context switching and parallel work in my queue which I hate (#WIPLimit!). And sometimes I've already went down different path when I finally get an answer (which renders my time spent on the question and someone else's time spent on the answer #waste). 11/

Another aspect that makes #ChatGPT so much better than #StackOverflow: it is always nice to me. StackOverflow has one of the most toxic communities I know of. There are so many arbitrary rules about how questions have to be asked ... 12/

... and almost everyone seems to be a moderator that feels obliged to tell me that I am doing something wrong. But not many people that can (or want?) give useful answers. I get more notifications about what people moderated in my posts than about answers that could help me. 13/

I understand that #StackOverflow is trying to become some kind of compendium, but a lot of moderation action is just noise that does not improve the quality at all and if I have to invest way more than I get out of it, it is just not worth the trouble. 14/

IMHO the idea of a #community should be that everyone gets out more of it than they have to invest. On #StackOverflow I feel like most of my effort is wasted on enforcing some structure that I don't understand and even less understand what it contributes to. 15/

By contrast, #ChatGPT always tries its best to be useful, even if I'm sloppy. It doesn't even care for my typos. If it doesn't understand something, it tells me that or just gives a rough answer which I can easily fix by narrowing down the context. 16/

Here's an example for a question that I was unable to get a definite answer for via #GoogleSearch and that is obviously not welcome on #StackOverflow (Why? because people should not share their personal experience? I don't know, I don't care). 17/

"Can I compile Capacitor apps for iOS on 2019 Intel MacBook Pro?" Frustrating thread on #StackOverflow stackoverflow.com/questions/7528… I asked this 10 days ago and the only answer I got so far is something I mentioned that I already know in the question. 18/

This is what #ChatGPT gave me within one minute. It wasn't as straight forward with the sources as I had hoped for, but after asking for more specific sources, it gave me a link to a compatibility list for #XCode that eventually gave the answer. 19/

Again something I could have googled myself _if_ I would have figured out the right prompt "XCode hardware compatibility". But this is already in the solution space, which I did not know when I came up with the question 20/

#ChatGPT is just way more natural in the way it understands my questions without requiring me to translate it into "machine thinking". 21/

So this is how #ChatGPT boosts my #productivity: its understanding of human language and its interactive approach allow me to ask questions in my own words and then narrow it down step by step until I have the answer I was looking for. 22/

All within minutes of lightweight conversation instead of hours of talking to machines (or humans that behave like machines). 23/

#ChatGPT quickly helps me to remove obstacles in my progress withouth even requiring me to switch context. Neither because I have to translate my thinking into "machine thinking", nor because I have to do something else until I get the answer. And this is huge for me! 24/

What do you think about #ChatGPT? How does it make your life easier? Are there reasons why you don't use it? I'm looking forward for your comments! And stay tuned if you want to hear my thoughts about how this might affect the future of #GoogleSearch and #StackOverflow. 25/25

Thank you for reading through this thread all the way to the end. If you liked this thread and want to share it, here's the first tweet again:

https://twitter.com/frederikheld/status/1624081862602764295

Unfortunately I cut off the screenshot and now it does not bring my point across. Here's the full conversation. The thread continues below

https://twitter.com/frederikheld/status/1624081868298543104