Flaky

Pretty much, yeah. I think Windows uses something like \\PhysicalDisk0 internally, then shows it to the user with lettering.

That’s for mounting, yeah, but when it comes to interacting with the hardware, Linux itself uses letters for some types of devices. For example, serial-connected ones (e.g. SATA internal drives, USB external drives) are /dev/sdx (x being a letter from A-Z). I don’t know what happens when all letters are used up though, maybe someone can chime in there? NVMe uses numbers it seems - my boot drive is /dev/nvme0n1

There are other ways to access devices and partitions besides that though. I just had to put EndeavourOS on a flash drive and the Arch Wiki recommended doing this by targeting the drive via /dev/disk/by-id/, which lists connected drives by name, connectivity and serial number.

I’ve used ChatGPT to answer questions relating to Python. Notably, I asked it how to use QtNetwork to send and receive requests with authentication, as the application I was using did not use any non-standard modules I was more accustomed to like requests but did have PyQt. Not only did it gave me working code snippets but explained it in a way that I was able to understand. No, it’s not perfect. But man it’s better than hunting Google for that one StackOverflow post.

I have heard it trips up on certain less-used programming languages like Swift though, so depending on your use case YMMV. I’ve also not used Codex but a friend of mine has. Apparently it really liked to mention this one specific GitHub profile.

For shits and giggles I asked ChatGPT a while back to represent a Pokemon with a Python class, and it gave me working code. Google Bard would trip up and not use the class when I told it to.

I see the Lego comparison and I admit, when I built computers when I was younger I did that exact comparison.

Nowadays I would say it’s more akin to building Ikea furniture than Lego. It can be daunting, especially the more expensive you go, and depending on one’s situation it might even be better to have someone else do it, but if you do build it, it’s very rewarding. IIRC the CEO of AMD made that Ikea comparison and it’s a lot more apt IMO.

I’ll be honest, when I was looking for places to get a PC built, Reddit was of little help either. Constantly telling me to build it myself when I couldn’t even if I wanted to.

(Eventually did get a PC built, paid more mainly due to UK VAT)