Use AI to Resurrect your shelved Project

[Uncle Gizmo]

For all you MS Access developers with those shelved projects gathering dust, waiting for the day when you have the time and patience to tackle them... let me share a little story. ChatGPT now has a custom interface called "Code CoPilot." To test it, I asked if it could suggest any utility ideas I might build in my spare time. It gave me a list, and among the suggestions, Chatty proposed an import routine for Excel.

Now, I was working on something similar back in 2017. There was a thread about it here: "Joining large tables together"

Video here:

Importing large CSV files into MS Access - Nifty Access

I didn't go directly for importing Excel because that limits you to Excel. If you export from your spreadsheet into CSV (comma-separated value) files, then it will work with anything as long as you can convert it to CSV. I shelved that project because, frankly, I was getting frustrated with it; every time I made progress, another setback dug itself in.

However, Chatty bashed out some excellent-looking code (which I still have to check and verify). Looking back through my notes on this large CSV import routine, I realized that if I presented my code to Chatty, it might be able to incorporate it into its own code. Chatty checked through my code, extracted useful bits, and made a new block of code that looks very interesting.

They say two heads are better than one, and we've got one biological head and one digital head. I think the combination is working well. We still haven't perfected the utility, but Chatty definitely takes the frustration out of development, though it does add a bit of frustration back in when it ignores my instructions!

So, going back to your shelved projects—if you've got one that gives you an enormous headache and you shoved it on a dusty shelf in a dusty corner—it might be time to ask Chatty what it thinks about your project. Have a conversation with Chatty and see if you can iron out the bugs and get it working...

 

[Thales750]

It works so well I have stopped asking humans for help. It did multiple calendars in Outlook automation for me from scratch.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

I have stopped asking humans for help

And my guess is, if you're like me, you will ask it the daftest questions you'd never ask on the forums for fear of embarrassment!

 

[ebs17]

I read something in the linked topic.

1st consideration: Before you think about codes, it is useful to think about conditions and processes. You have a CSV file with 1143 columns as a starting point. MS Access (Jet/ACE) can only manage 255 columns in a table and in a query.
If MS Access is to serve as at least a front end, it will have to be restructured significantly.

2nd consideration: For me, importing means that you can work with the data directly and effectively. That means that you have a well thought-out and completed database schema into which you transfer the data from the CSV file. I didn't see any of that in the explanations. Nothing sensible can be derived from the dummy names and data.
Only when you know the target structures can you choose sensible, simple, quick and direct measures to carry out what is called import.

Did the AI say something like that?

 

[Lightwave]

Chat GPT is definitely good when you have focused code problems like this... which is great at the moment when I can check what it produces.

When and if we get agents that can do pretty much do everything there is no way we will have enough time to check all the code that it will be able to produce.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

ChatGPT is not intelligent. All it does is scan it's data which I understand, (ironically, considering the gist of this thread) is a set of data points stored in a CSV file!

If you say:- the cat sat on the - ? Chatty most likely will say mat.... The answer derived from most common series of words mapped in it's data structure.

In another experiment I was asking chatty how could I introduce a referential integrity error. Chatty suggested switching off referential integrity and then changing the ID for the record to something non-existent like 999, and then switching referential integrity back on.

I knew it wouldn't work. I explained to chatty several times that this would not work because you could not switch referential integrity back on if there was an incorrect reference.

Chatty kept on repeating this error... There is not one iota of intelligence in it.. It is not intelligent it just parrots what it's discovered from the internet.

This is why you need to know what you're doing as a programmer when you are using Chatty...

I asked chatty if it had found the code on the internet, or if it had created the code from first principles. It said it had created the code from first principles. Now somehow I find this hard to believe!

It's like your dog, it appears to be intelligent but there's no intelligence there, there's just a set of pre-programmed reactions and the ability to learn the programming that is expected from it..

Makes me wonder if I am intelligent! Or just parroting information....

I am convinced that both the republicans and democrats are not intelligent. Both parties follow ideologies in other words they parrot something.. No thought given to the situation....

Historically this ideology driven politics permeates mans history...

From the Scottish clans killing, murdering and fighting each other for centuries....

The Christian religions again suffering from splits and ideological differences which degenerate into conflict.

The Muslims I understand they are at least two separate religions both based on fundamentally the same ideology but with some slight difference which causes them to hate each other....

Chatty has taught me that intelligence is something that is "apparent" but not really there.

I'm wondering if there is anything or anyone that could be considered intelligent?