30 ChatGPT Exercises for Engineers in Software Development

It takes both art and science to create software engineering-related ChatGPT prompts that work well.

ChatGPT’s outputs range from faulty code to fully functional applications that even non-technical users may construct right out of the box, which is why the phrase “prompt engineering” is becoming more and more popular.

In other words, the quality of the input determines the quality of the output.

This robust tool may help with all phases of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), but tailoring prompt templates to your specific use cases and requirements requires an awareness of the fundamentals of good prompting.

Guidelines for Inspiring Software Engineering ChatGPT

Since ChatGPT may help with any kind of inquiry, knowing the fundamentals of prompting will enable you to use this tool in a range of unusual situations.

In order to optimise ChatGPT, developers should:

Give a clear definition of the issue or task you’re seeking to address before contacting ChatGPT. The more precise and thorough your work or problem is, the more ChatGPT will be able to comprehend it and make pertinent recommendations.

Ask questions or request code snippets from ChatGPT using natural language:

It’s preferable to ask questions or request code snippets using natural language, just like you would ask a coworker for assistance. This makes it more likely that ChatGPT will comprehend the issue and produce accurate and pertinent results. For instance, “How can I use a for loop in Python to iterate over a list of integers?” might be a better input than “for loop Python.”

“How can I iterate over a list of integers in Python using a for loop?”

Give a detailed background:

Provide details on the programming language or framework you’re using, any tried-and-true solutions or current code, and any particular limitations or requirements.

Iterate and refine the results:

Once ChatGPT has produced a result, examine and edit as needed. To improve results, keep prodding ChatGPT with more information, criticism, and queries. Consider ChatGPT as a colleague with whom you are conversing, as opposed to an output device.

Examine your work:

It’s important that you independently confirm the outputs because ChatGPT can deceive and have hallucinations. Instead of delegating your decision-making to the tool, contribute your own experience to the discussion.
Let’s now discuss the important factors to take into account while creating ChatGPT prompts for software engineers.

Important Things to Take Into Account When ChatGPT-Prompting in Software Engineering

You must not only comprehend the fundamentals of prompting but also customise your prompts for your particular setting.

First and foremost, you need to think about:

Internal vs. public models: You might have more control over the prompts and outputs produced by the system if your software company uses the internal ChatGPT model. Here, the model can be trained using certain datasets or use cases that are pertinent to the requirements of the business. To guarantee that the outputs are precise and pertinent to their particular use case, you might need to take extra care when creating your prompts if the organisation is utilising a publicly accessible version of ChatGPT.

Style guidelines: Internal coding standards or style guidelines are used by many software businesses to specify how code should be formatted and expressed. Make sure that the results of ChatGPT’s code generation closely adhere to these criteria.
Governance and Security: Software engineers should follow internal policies for public models. Everything you provide into ChatGPT will be used as training data and could be shared with Microsoft and OpenAI in addition to other users. Sensitive information and business details should therefore not be disclosed.
Let’s get started with the top ChatGPT prompts for software engineering now that you know the fundamentals.

The Top 30 ChatGPT Questions for Software Developers

In order to integrate ChatGPT into the SDLC efficiently, engineers need to think about the ideal prompts for each step.

Generally speaking, ChatGPT saves more time by creating laborious documentation than by performing the “thinking” for you. Recall that ChatGPT is not a senior software engineer; rather, it is a tool for brainstorming, a colleague, and an assistant.

1. Planning Stage: ChatGPT can assist developers in defining the needs and scope of a software project, as well as in spotting any obstacles or possibilities, during the planning stage.

Start by outlining your goals and formulating targeted questions such as:

• “What possible dangers and difficulties could this project present?”
• “What is a reasonable budget and schedule for this project?”
• “Which technologies and tools are most appropriate for this project?”
• After using ChatGPT for research, let it help you draft project documentation that provide a common understanding of the goals, objectives, and available resources.

Sample prompt

Create a project charter outlining the objectives, deliverables, scope, stakeholders, and success criteria of a software development project. The goal of the project is to create a mobile application for a healthcare provider that will let users contact with medical professionals, examine their medical records, and make appointments. Five developers will oversee the project, which should be finished in six months. The project has a $500,000 budget. Please make sure the paper has all required sections and content and complies with our company’s style guide.

2. Analysis Stage: ChatGPT can assist developers in gathering and analysing project-related data in order to discover viable methods or solutions during the analysis stage.

Begin with prompts such as these:

• “What are the software system’s functional and non-functional requirements?”

• “What are the design principles that the software system must adhere to?”

• “What is the software system’s cost-benefit analysis?”

• “How can we create a plan to mitigate potential risks and rank them in order of importance?”

To come up with ideas and further specify the parameters of your project, utilise ChatGPT. Next, use the tool to make the necessary materials.

2. Analysis Stage: During this phase, ChatGPT can help developers collect and evaluate project-related data to find workable approaches or solutions.

Start with some prompts like these:

• “What are the software system’s functional and non-functional requirements?”
• “What are the design principles that the software system must adhere to?”
• “What is the software system’s cost-benefit analysis?”
• “How can we create a plan to mitigate potential risks and rank them in order of importance?”

Use ChatGPT to generate ideas and better define the project’s specifications. Next, manufacture the required materials with the tool.

Sample prompt

“Produce a thorough design document for a software system intended to handle the inventory and sales of a retail business. A modular architecture is ideal for the system because it makes scaling and maintenance simple. It should have an intuitive and user-friendly web-based user interface with tools for adding, editing, and removing products as well as for managing inventory levels, creating sales reports, and handling customer orders. The data should be managed and stored by the system using a database that has features for recovery, backup, and security. The system architecture, software design, user interface design, and database design should all be covered in detail in the document, along with any flowcharts or diagrams required to clarify these ideas.

Please make sure the material is easy to read and comprehend and complies with our company’s style guide.

4. Development Stage: ChatGPT can assist developers in writing and testing software project code during this phase.

Although ChatGPT can provide scripts or entire code for particular tasks, its output might not always be suitable for production use. You can utilise the code that ChatGPT generates as a basis for additional development and improvement.

Instead, ChatGPT works best when it comes to helping software developers by giving them ideas and suggestions for scripts and code. Here are a few good questions to ask:

• “Will you assist me in writing a function to put this feature into use?”
• “How can the performance and scalability of this code be improved?”
• Which testing techniques work best for this software project?
• “Is it possible to convert this Java code to Python?”

In order for code to be generated, make sure the context described in the earlier phases of the SDLC is provided.

Sample prompt

“Create a collection of snippets of code that will be used to construct a web-based user interface for a software programme that lets people handle their personal money. With capabilities for adding and tracking income and expenses, generating reports, and establishing financial objectives, the user interface should be simple to use and navigate. The data should be managed and stored by the system using a database that has features for recovery, backup, and security. Python should be used to write the code snippets, and best practices for web development should be followed, such as using a current framework and abiding by the concepts of modularity and separation of concerns.

Please make sure the code is simple to read and maintain and complies with our company’s style standards.

5. Testing Stage: ChatGPT can assist developers in finding and resolving defects during the testing stage, as well as ensuring that the product satisfies the necessary criteria and standards.

By creating test cases and test data that span various scenarios and input combinations, ChatGPT can greatly expedite the testing process. These can then be executed through automated and manual testing methods.

Software developers should think about issues such as:

“I need help writing test cases for this feature. Can you help?”
“Are you able to create a bug report?”
“How can we make this software more dependable and high-quality?”
“What security testing best practices are there?”
Next, allow ChatGPT to assume a substantial amount of the work

Sample prompt

Create a set of test data and test cases to be used in the testing of an online e-commerce application. Features for exploring products, adding items to a cart, and checking out should be included in the application. A variety of scenarios, such as browsing products with and without filters, adding items to a cart with and without a discount code, and checking out using various payment methods, should be covered by the test cases. Please make sure the test cases are simple to read and comprehend, and that the test data covers a broad range of values and input combinations. To help with the testing process, please also create test scripts and other testing resources like test plans and results.

6. Deployment Stage: ChatGPT can assist developers in this stage by making sure the software project is ready for deployment and functions properly in the live environment.

Software developers may inquire about:

• “For this software project, what deployment strategies work best?”
• “Would you please assist me in configuring this application’s server settings?”
• “How can we keep an eye on this software’s availability and performance?”
• “What version control and release management best practices are there?”

Pushing your product live is the culmination of all of your earlier prompts.

Sample Prompt

Kindly provide deployment scripts for an online shopping application. The programme is designed with Node.js and MongoDB, and it ought to be set up on an AWS Kubernetes cluster. The application should be deployed precisely and effectively, and the deployment procedure should be automated by the deployment scripts. To help with the deployment process, please also create any configuration files and documentation that are required.

If in doubt, consult a specialist

If you run into trouble, ask ChatGPT “what prompt can I input to achieve a better outcome?” after describing what the result is missing.

Alternatively, consult a ChatGPT: KMS Technology expert.

Your engineering team can successfully include ChatGPT into your SDLC with the aid of KMS.

Among our AI and ML offerings are:

• AI-enabled best practices for the SDLC
• Practical instruction and workshops
• Agile techniques and process integration
• AI tool selection and oversight
• Metrics and tracking for performance
• continuous guidance and assistance

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