Day 13 of 21 Days of Javascript

Michael Tefula

Michael Tefula

— 1 min read

ChatGPT Study Mode

I've been using ChatGPT's Study Mode alongside what is my core resource – the book Eloquent Javascript – in learning javascript. Some impressions so far:

The good bits...

  • I can copy and paste in portions of a book's text and ask for clarity on an area the author might have overlooked or did not have time to get into. This is super useful for learning!
  • It's good at writing quizzes and quick tests.
  • It can also grade answers with nuance (e.g. catching edge cases that fail in a piece of code that I would have missed otherwise.)
  • I've had to prompt it a bit to provide useful summary notes that cover areas specific to my learning journey. But once it knows the style of summary I'd like, it gets it right more often.

The bad bits...

  • The browser (maybe it's down to my laptop) and ChatGPT grind to a halt when you get a study mode conversation that's large. I'm at 45k tokens and typing in text and getting responses is no longer fast.
  • It's mostly text-based learning. Visuals are limited to simple text illustrations like the one below.
   Person constructor
   ┌───────────────────────────┐
   │ class Person {...}        │
   └──────────┬────────────────┘
              │
              ▼
   Person.prototype
   ┌───────────────────────────┐
   │ { sayHi: f(), constructor }│
   └──────────┬────────────────┘
              │
              ▼
         Object.prototype
   ┌───────────────────────────┐
   │ { toString: f(), ... }    │
   └───────────────────────────┘

   Instance (alice)
   ┌───────────────────────────┐
   │ { name: "Alice", __proto__ → Person.prototype }
   └───────────────────────────┘
  • There is no interactive environment specifically for programming, and neither is there one for maths, physics, or other domains that might benefit from interactive dynamics. You would need a sandbox with custom html/javascript for this. It could be something for future versions of Study Mode.

Overall I've found Study Mode useful and I'm engaging it every day. I expect to continue using it for other subject areas beyond coding.

Ps. I completed Chapter 6 of Eloquent Javascript today.

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