Comment by skeledrew
3 days ago
For the last few days I've been working on a personal project that's been on ice for at least 6 years. Back when I first thought of the project and started implementing it, it took maybe a couple weeks to eke out some minimally working code.
This new version that I'm doing (from scratch with ChatGPT web) has a far more ambitious scope and is already at the "usable" point. Now I'm primarily solidifying things and increasing test coverage. And I've tested the key parts with IRL scenarios to validate that it's not just passing tests; the thing actually fulfills its intended function so far. Given the increased scope, I'm guessing it'd take me a few months to get to this point on my own, instead of under a week, and the quality wouldn't be where it is. Not saying I haven't had to wrangle with ChatGPT on a few bugs, but after a decent initial planning phase, my prompts now are primarily "Do it"s and "Continue"s. Would've likely already finished it if I wasn't copying things back and forth between browser and editor, and being forced to pause when I hit the message limit.
This is a great come-back story. I have had a similar experience with a photoshop demake of mine.
I recommend to try out Opencode with this approach, you might find it less tiring than ChatGPT web (yes it works with your ChatGPT Plus sub).
I actually don't have a subscription; just started ramping up my usage, and still primarily evaluating. TBH also the main reason I'm using ChatGPT for this project is because Claude kept timing out on my initial prompt, maybe because too much for their free plan. But it turned out well as ChatGPT has a higher message limit, and I still use Claude to resolve bugs that stump ChatGPT (and me); I consider it my "big gun" that I resort to in extraordinary circumstances, or for things I'm pretty sure it'll handle in a few rounds. ChatGPT is more for "grunt work".