Chat GPT maybe a stochastic parrot(or a lobotomized n-gram model on steroids). But its damn good at understanding and explaining the basics of concepts in programming. I now use it frequently. Here is a old(ish) example. Understanding AsyncIO.
Even though I don't get the the most accurate answers from ChatGPT it provides very good direction. Like try googling for "python asyncio futures integrating with callback-based libraries"; I got only the Python API Doc result that was really relevant/good. Now look at ChatGPT: https://chat.openai.com/share/e8ad1d40-56f0-494e-96b9-63ae95e155bb the query is:
"
> Use a Future when you're dealing with lower-level code, especially when integrating with callback-based libraries or systems.
Can you explain with an example from the Task class's source code or with an example?
"
Several useful blog posts(the first link is broken in teh ChatGPT link but try googling for just the Path in the URL and you get to https://lwn.net/Articles/692254/ page, which is great!).
Bard just falls flat: https://g.co/bard/share/0deaad2e3817
Another example is where I ask for tutorials/videos explaining AsyncIO and there were several quality results like: https://snarky.ca/how-the-heck-does-async-await-work-in-python-3-5/ and of course David Beazley. Google just spams you with ONLY video results. If you remove the term "video" the results are better. But since the latter is a more basic query I expect google to be able to do reasonably. Bard for what ever reason refuses(https://g.co/bard/share/79c0bc347c99).
Also Google has plenty of very distracting SEO content interspersed with useful results.
Bing says download Edge to use the Chat Bot. Yeah right...
I am paying 20$ per month for ChatGPT Premium. But it does not seem Google/Bing are options I would ever pay for not because I expect them to be free but because they are not nearly as dev friendly as ChatGPT.
I have tons of more examples like this.
One thing I've found is that certifications offering CEUs often reward entry-level bloggery, and so it's these guys who are just writing to fulfill a requirement, writ large, like thousands and thousands, and they're all ad-supported and indexed. The other type you'll find is a vendor who blogs and they've basically written an opinionated advertisement for some product they're selling, and that's not neutral tech info.
The best bet, as it always has been, is to seek out the vendor documentation, the standards bodies, the authors who've published books and established themselves as authorities on the topic.
These sources are not difficult to find! They may sometimes cost you money, but they're not obscure and they're not hidden. Go find them.
As an educator, I get so frustrated with any colleague who encourages and instructs students to go ask an LLM or go use Google Search, because they're the bottom-of-the-barrel worst places to find and learn information. My tech interview for $currentjob actually hinged on using Search to find some info, and I paused a moment to explain to the interviewer how Search results were clogged with crap, and we'd need to separate out a diamond in the rough.
The compounded problem also, is that students who do use LLM or Search will frequently find comprehensive solutions to the questions they're asking, and they will be sorely tempted to copy-paste those into their homework, and then we have to deal with it. A disservice to the student all around, who never learned anything to begin with, because they didn't even try.