I’ve been using ChatGPT for just about everything lately. Although I spun up the infrastructure to host this blog months ago, it’s unlikely I would have done anything with it without ChatGPT’s help. For some tasks, it’s invaluable. For others... it’s borderline useless (and no, I’m not talking about helping with house chores — though that would be nice).
One of my favorite use cases is offloading tedious tasks — things like filling out technical specs for new projects or estimating hours and deliverables. It excels at this kind of busywork, knocking out solid drafts with minimal corrections. I also recently used it to put together a presentation on Azure Synapse. While it couldn’t build an end-to-end deck with styling and transitions, the content was stellar — clear, structured, and surprisingly insightful.
It was also a great co-pilot for setting up and configuring this blog on the Ghost platform. Sure, it still needs some polish, but it’s not bad for an initial launch. ChatGPT knew exactly where to go in the admin UI, offered good guidance on customizing my theme, and handled most of the “code injection” (CSS/HTML) work without much fuss. As an aside, I’m now more convinced than ever that nobody really needs to learn HTML anymore. ChatGPT’s got it covered.
When it comes to writing code, it's hit more than miss — especially if I already have a general idea of what I want. It can generate concise, well-commented code that I probably wouldn’t have written as efficiently myself. But it really struggles with navigating the beautiful disaster that is Microsoft Azure. Sometimes it knows the exact UI path I need. Other times, it invents menu options, settings, or services that don’t exist. In its defense, Azure changes weekly — but still, I expected better.
What I do appreciate, though, is how wildly optimistic it is. Every fix is “just around the corner.” Every error is a “minor configuration issue.” It tricks me into thinking I’m close to solving something... until three hours go by and I’ve fallen down another rabbit hole. And yet — I keep coming back. I’m even using it to edit this post.
As much as I enjoy writing my own SQL, I’m looking forward to using ChatGPT to help with the things I usually avoid — like error handling (which I’ve never been particularly good at). It's not perfect, but it’s helping me tremendously. And for now, that’s more than good enough.
How are you using ChatGPT?