What Do I Need To Know About Large Language Models?

Hey there and Happy Friday!My name is Rachel and I am a part of the Forem/DEV/CodeNewbie team. I have been creating this “What I Learned This Week” segment to discuss relevant posts on #codenewbie and/or #beginners that relate to things I have been interested in this week.Side note: if you haven't peeped the CodeNewbie tag or CodeNewbie Team Page, here are those things! #codenewbie Follow The most supportive community of programmers and people learning to code. CodeNewbie Follow The most supportive community of programmers and people learning to code. Part of the DEV family. A Brief IntroductionThis week, I wanted to discuss Large Learning Models (LLMs) with some extra content sprinkled in about code refactoring tools and learning to code! Needless to say, I have been reading a lot of posts lately about AI developments (and related controversy) and I thought that it was high time for me to learn a lot more about how these systems actually function. Note: While we are here, I would also love to call attention to our incredible Guidelines for AI-assisted Articles on DEV to read more into DEV's policies on AI.Let’s talk through some posts that helped me understand these concepts and maybe they can help you too! Large Learning ModelsLet's begin with an article that helped to give me my base knowledge of the capabilities of LLMs. @wesen states, "This article is mostly directed at programmers among my readers: we are at a pivotal moment where we programmers need to understand and appropriate these technologies, on our own terms, before capitalism does it for us.” LLMs will fundamentally change software engineering Manuel Odendahl ・ Mar 23 ・ 23 min read #programming #ai #productivity This article by @shanshaji also helped me to understand how I can write prompts for LLMs so that I am more likely to get better results from their software. Writing Effective Prompts for Large Language Models: Two Prompting Principles and Their Related Tactics Shan ・ May 19 ・ 4 min read #chatgpt #prompt #beginners #programming @jarrodhroberson 's TLDR speaks for itself, “I tried to get ChatGPT 3.5 and 4 as well as Bard to increase my productivity. I wasted 6 hours of my life proving what I already knew from just reading the docs on where they got their training on "writing code"; StackOverflow.” I "did my own research" and "AI" is not taking my job any time soon. Jarrod Roberson ・ May 16 ・ 7 min read #programming #beginners #productivity Code Refactoring ToolsIn this article by @surajondev, they explain some tools to improve the quality and maintainability of your code. Confession— I did not initially know what a code refactoring tool was. However, now I am here to tell you that I learned that they can help save you time and effort, and prevent errors in code! Who doesn't want that? 5 Code Refactoring Tools to Boost Development Efficiency Suraj Vishwakarma for Documatic ・ May 20 ・ 4 min read #javascript #beginners #programming #codequality Learning to CodeI also loved this article by @wynandpieters, as they take you through their coding education AND offer a great opportunity for you to share yours. How I Would Learn To Code (If I Could Start Over) Wynand Pieters ・ May 15 ・ 4 min read #beginners #programming #discuss #career And with that, that is all I have for y'all today! If you have even more information to share on any of these topics, feel free to drop some information below!Happy coding y’all and have a great weekend.