Getting by with a little help from AI friend (versioin 12.8.2)

 

A couple of days ago I had just finished coding a feature in EZchecklist that I'd wanted to do for a long time. It took about 5 hours to get working, and it looked good, but the underlying coding was so ugly that I couldn't bear it if anyone ever saw it. The odds of someone seeing the ugliness were extremely remote, but before I went to sleep I promised myself to rewrite the code so that it was more presentable (to myself, at least).

That opportunity came the next morning because I just couldn't live another day with all that ugly code living inside my computer, even though it was invisible to the world except me, of course.  Another five hours and it was done.  Two hundred plus lines of code replaced with 39 lines.

Feeling much better about the transformation, I then had the thought that chatGPT 4.o might be able to do better, so I copied and pasted the code into the AI and asked it to optimize it... if it can. AI got it down to about 18 lines and did it in about 5 seconds, tops, but it's not as easy to follow as my code.  Sure, it would run a bit faster but speed is not the issue here.

Having a coder to coder chat with AI about the various approaches to the problem was amazingly educational.  For me.  I doubt AI learned anything, and sure didn't have that warm fuzzy feeling of getting something to work.

Maybe I'll go back later and implement AI's optimized coding.  Maybe not.  There's something to be said for pride of human workmanship rather than the sterile perfection of AI.

And I'm happy that, at 82, my mind is still capable of learning new approaches to coding.

Note: I asked AI to illustrate the concept. It took about 10 seconds. I couldn't have done it in 10 years.

More: Version 12.8.1

Every time I demonstrate the EZchecklist to a new, or returning, user, I learn something. Recently I was going through the features and usage and it hit me that a certain use case could be simplified a good bit and I got right to work on it, and... tada! Version 12.8.1.  But the goodness really deserves a version 12.9 or even 13 because it's just that excellent.

The old custom menu is replaced with a drop down in A1 for selecting the number of days to display.

And, something I've wanted for soooo long: when a new day is automatically created, it will be included in the number of days already selected. So, when you have, say, 7 days selected for analysis/comparison/whatever, now you won't get 8 days when a new column is added each morning. Is it just me, or is that a big deal?

The old custom menu was giving me fits. It showed up on every sheet, even though it should show only on the "Checklist" sheet.  If it was used on the "Dashboard" sheet, it would call or sorts of havoc and an out of sync condition with the Checklist sheet. It was madness. Now the menu is only on the Checklist sheet and all is right with the world.

Many cosmetic changes.

Updated User Guide

On January 15, 2025 it will be 10 years that I have been using and improving EZchecklist.

Full Moon Brings Update to Version 12.8

This is a Major Update, bringing new features and flexibilities.

Variable date ranges for Charts and Analytics in Column A, 

Expanded Menu options for selecting days to be Viewed and analyzed.

Simpler UI 

Conditional formatting improved, simplified

Habits vs. Motivation

 

source: https://twitter.com/PhilOfLife_/status/1529768940037148673

Habits

 

It's an interesting proposition, however in my case I have made major progress in reducing the bad habits and improving, and creating, new good habits. So, it can be done if you have the commitment. 

Your Daily Routine

You’ll never change your life

until you change something you do daily.

The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.

John C. Maxwell

Shortcut on iPhone Home Screen

I use EZchecklist™ on my laptop most of the time, but it sure comes in handy on my iPhone too.  However, it's a lot of poking around to open the Drive app, then go looking for my EZchecklist™ file and then open it. 

So I finally got around to adding a "shortcut" to it on my home screen.

It's much easier now! And it's easier, then I'll use it more, and if I use it more then I'll build good habits faster.

Your Daily Agenda

The secret of your success is 

determined by your daily agenda

John C. Maxwell

Import Bitcoin price into EZchecklist™

The formula for any cell where you want to store the current Bitcoin price. 

=GOOGLEFINANCE("CURRENCY:BTCUSD")

To capture the current price of the Standard and Poor 500 Index:

=GOOGLEFINANCE("SPY")

The Most Important Habit

"The most important habit is choosing the right habit to work on."

James Clear

It sounds good, but it falls short. 

In my estimation, the most important habit is to begin every day with the resolve to work on your habits, and to do that, you open your EZchecklist™ and start checking off the habits as you do them.

EZchecklist™ is "the mother of all good habits". If you start your day this way, and check in on your EZchecklist™ a couple of times during the day, and one last time before bed, you will surely build bulletproof habits quickly.