While I have yet to take an actual COURSE on how to do prompt engineering, but I have read some documentation. For me, this is progress. I prefer to jump in and see if I can figure things out, especially if it is consumer facing. Also, I have asked ChatGPT and Claude to assist me in making some prompts. Let’s just say that AI is still amazingly self unaware when it comes to its own instructions.

Some of the reasons I have not taken an actual course, is because there are so many options (ChatGPT, Claude, Claude Code, Cline), new versions coming out, and instructions (be general, be specific, use xml formatting, use JSON), it is hard to know which one or four to dive deeper into. (The listings above are in no way comprehensive.)

I like technology, but I cannot constantly consume it to know everything that exists or is coming. Don’t get me wrong, I still love learning, but it cannot be the only reason I exist.

All that is to say, in an effort to stay related, relevant, informed, educated and in the know, I feel like I am falling behind. This more a referendum on me than AI…

More on me (it is my blog), I am aware of a trend of mine. I take courses, but I am bad at finishing the a large curriculum. One of most flagrant examples of incompleteness is freedCodeCamp. There are aspects I want to learn, sometimes that whole thing takes me away from my area of initial interest. I usually try to learn something for a specific reason or function, which makes it difficult to keep going down what I am going to call “more tangents”. (Which is usually how I find something to learn about).

My haphazard way of learning, playing with code snippets locally and not posting projects probably makes it difficult to prove to potential employers that I am not stagnating. I better start putting something out, even if it is not a super polished, ready for production app…