What Do I Need To Know About Large Language Models?
Tags: codenewbie, ai, beginners, discuss
Published: 2023-05-26 15:00:00

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](https://dev.to/t/codenewbie) and/or [#beginners](https://dev.to/t/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!

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## A Brief Introduction

This 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](https://dev.to/devteam/guidelines-for-ai-assisted-articles-on-dev-17n6) 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 Models

Let'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.”

{% embed https://dev.to/wesen/llms-will-fundamentally-change-software-engineering-3oj8 %}

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.

{% embed https://dev.to/shanshaji/writing-effective-prompts-for-large-language-models-two-prompting-principles-and-their-related-tactics-151a %}

@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.”

{% embed https://dev.to/jarrodhroberson/i-did-my-own-research-and-ai-is-not-taking-my-job-any-time-soon-3pgj %}

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## Code Refactoring Tools

In 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?

{% embed https://dev.to/documatic/5-code-refactoring-tools-to-boost-development-efficiency-1nf6 %}

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## Learning to Code

I also loved this article by @wynandpieters, as they take you through their coding education AND offer a great opportunity for you to share yours.

{% embed https://dev.to/wynandpieters/how-i-would-learn-to-code-if-i-could-start-over-4757 %}

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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.