Module 6: ChatGPT for Coding & Technical Work

🎯 Template Formula

ChatGPT Response (example):

1. Root cause: You're trying to add strings to an integer. The prices list contains strings ("10") not integers.

2. Fixed code:

def calculate_total(prices):
    total = 0
    for price in prices:
        total += int(price)  # Convert string to int
    return total

# Or more Pythonic:
def calculate_total(prices):
    return sum(int(price) for price in prices)

# With error handling:
def calculate_total(prices):
    try:
        return sum(int(price) for price in prices)
    except ValueError as e:
        print(f"Invalid price format: {e}")
        return 0
                        

3. Prevention: Always validate and convert data types when accepting user input. Use type hints and validate at the boundary of your system.

ChatGPT Response (example):

What it does: Creates a list of squared even numbers from 0 to 9.

Breakdown:

• range(10) → numbers 0 through 9
• if x % 2 == 0 → keep only even numbers (0, 2, 4, 6, 8)
• x**2 → square each one (0, 4, 16, 36, 64)
• [...] → collect into list

Why use this: More concise than a for loop, Pythonic, faster for simple operations

When to use: When transforming/filtering lists in one line. Avoid for complex logic.

Refactored version:

from collections import Counter

def find_duplicates(data):
    """Find all duplicate elements in a list.
    
    Time complexity: O(n)
    Space complexity: O(n)
    """
    return [item for item, count in Counter(data).items() if count > 1]

# Or using set (if order doesn't matter):
def find_duplicates(data):
    seen = set()
    duplicates = set()
    for item in data:
        if item in seen:
            duplicates.add(item)
        else:
            seen.add(item)
    return list(duplicates)
                        

Changes:

• O(n²) → O(n) using Counter
• Removed nested loops
• More Pythonic with list comprehension
• Added docstring