IBM Bob

The first time using it feels like magic. Its ability to analyze an existing codebase and adapt accordingly to questions, feature requests, issues, etc. is remarkable. However, it is not limited to an existing codebase - I've had it create new applications based on styling from another application from scratch. It has quickly gone from an amazing novelty to something that is relied upon daily.

Incentivized

• Analyzing existing programs, explaining clearly what it does.
• Rewriting programs in a more modern language and/or a much more modular design, adding lots of explanatory comments.
• Analyzing large amounts of data, verifying assumptions are either true or false.
• Improving my ability to write good prompts, by asking IBM Bob feedback about the prompt(s) I used.

Incentivized

• The setup of skills can be more simplified
• since the IBM Bob IDE is embedded in a VSCode based framework, we have to deal with the same UI (and missing guided workflows)
• The help pages are only available via URLs. I like to see an embedded help file which is structured and includes a search feature

It works well, for the most part, but asking for authorization for multiple steps or tool installation and use sometimes becomes bothersome. You can grant blanket authorizations but I do prefer to have a tradeoff there so not all is bad, but sometimes I get the impression that we get asked the same question several times during the same workflow.

Incentivized

ChatGPT just did not have the breadth and depth of insight for my coding needs. To get an approximation of what I wanted I had to restate my prompt multiple times, and it looked almost like it did not learn from one time to the other.

Incentivized

• The ROI from converting our Installer app went from an initial estimate of 2 weeks to 3 days.
• The testing of the finalized app, which had to communicate with an already existing app w, was difficult to implement and test.
• Converting old scripts from a proprietary IDE was done instantly.

Incentivized