StackExchange Tutorial Themes: Using ChatGPT to Discover Relevant Topics

As DevRel professionals, we know it's crucial to stay in touch with the community and offer valuable learning resources that cater to their needs. One of the tricky parts of this is figuring out the most relevant topics for tutorials or guides. That's where my latest project, the StackExchange Tutorial Themes app, steps in. By using the potential of OpenAI's ChatGPT with the StackExchange API, I've put together an app that checks out the newest questions from a StackExchange forum and comes up with approachable tutorial topics based on common and recurring themes.

In this blog post, I'll give a rundown on how the StackExchange Tutorial Themes app can help DevRel folks, making it easier to spot relevant tutorial topics, create outlines for those topics, and ultimately provide better support to the developer community.

Let's dive into what we'll cover:

1. StackExchange Tutorial Themes: A Quick Intro

2. Spotting Relevant Tutorial Topics with ChatGPT

3. Crafting Tutorial Outlines Step-by-Step

4. A Peek at the Code

5. Putting StackExchange Tutorial Themes to Work in Your DevRel Strategy

StackExchange Tutorial Themes: A Quick Intro

The StackExchange Tutorial Themes app is about helping DevRel folks spot relevant tutorial topics based on the newest questions popping up in various StackExchange forums. It's put together using the ChatGPT API and StackExchange API.

Here's the rundown of what the application does:

1. Grabs the latest questions from a StackExchange forum using the StackExchange API.

2. Digs into the questions to find common and recurring themes with the help of ChatGPT.

3. Crafts a list of user-friendly tutorial topics based on these themes.

4. Lets users click on any tutorial topic to generate an outline, providing a step-by-step guide for creating a tutorial on that particular topic.

By using the ChatGPT API, the application leverages AI's natural language processing skills to make sense of and organize the info found in StackExchange questions. This not only helps DevRel folks pinpoint relevant topics but also saves them time and effort in sifting through loads of forum discussions.

Spotting Relevant Tutorial Topics with ChatGPT

The key to any successful DevRel effort is truly understanding the developer community's needs and addressing them effectively. That's where the StackExchange Tutorial Themes application comes into play, with ChatGPT playing a helpful role in identifying the most relevant tutorial topics that cater to these needs.

In the context of the StackExchange Tutorial Themes app, ChatGPT is used to process the latest questions from a given StackExchange forum and extract common and recurring themes.

Here's how the process works:

1. After fetching the most recent questions from the StackExchange API, the application sends them to the ChatGPT API for analysis.

2. ChatGPT processes the questions and identifies patterns, commonalities, and recurring themes present in the text.

3. Based on the analysis, ChatGPT generates a list of tutorial topics that encapsulate the key themes found in the questions.

4. The application presents these tutorial topics in a user-friendly format, allowing DevRel folks to select the topics that best align with their goals and audience.

By using ChatGPT's capabilities, the StackExchange Tutorial Themes app ensures that the tutorial topics generated are relevant, timely, and aligned with the community's current interests. This, in turn, helps DevRel professionals create content that addresses the most pressing issues and concerns of their target audience.

Crafting Tutorial Outlines Step-by-Step

Once you've identified a relevant tutorial topic using the StackExchange Tutorial Themes application, the next step is to create an outline for the tutorial. An effective outline serves as a roadmap for crafting engaging and informative content, ensuring that all essential points are covered systematically.

The application simplifies the process of creating tutorial outlines by providing step-by-step guidance for each chosen topic. Here's how you can generate an outline for a selected tutorial topic:

1. Browse through the list of tutorial topics generated by the application based on the most recent questions from the StackExchange forum.

2. Select a topic that you find relevant and interesting for your target audience.

3. Click on the chosen topic to request an outline from the ChatGPT API.

4. ChatGPT generates a detailed outline for the tutorial, complete with an introduction, main sections, subsections, and a conclusion.

5. Review the outline and make any necessary adjustments to tailor it to your specific needs and style.

By providing a structured outline, the StackExchange Tutorial Themes application helps DevRel professionals save time and effort in the content creation process. With a clear roadmap in place, you can focus on fleshing out the tutorial and delivering valuable insights to the developer community

A Peek at the Code

In this section, we'll take a closer look at the code that powers the StackExchange Tutorial Themes application. The application is primarily composed of two JavaScript files: index.js and create-outline.js. Let's examine each file and understand how they work together to generate tutorial topics and outlines.

index.js:

This file is responsible for fetching recent questions from a StackExchange forum, analyzing them using the ChatGPT API, and saving the extracted tutorial topics to a database. The main steps in the process include:

1. Importing necessary modules and setting up the ChatGPT API instance with the OpenAI API key.

2. Defining a function saveTopicsToDatabase() to save the extracted tutorial topics to the database.

3. Defining functions getRecentQuestions() and extractQuestionText() to fetch recent questions from the StackExchange API and extract the question text, respectively.

4. Defining the function analyzeQuestionText() to send the extracted question text to the ChatGPT API, which then returns a list of tutorial topics based on the analyzed themes.

5. Implementing the main() function, which calls the functions defined above and processes the returned tutorial topics before saving them to the database.

create-outline.js:

This file is responsible for generating an outline for a given tutorial topic. It primarily consists of the following steps:

1. Importing necessary modules and setting up the ChatGPT API instance with the OpenAI API key.

2. Defining the function getOutline() to send the selected tutorial topic to the ChatGPT API, which then returns an HTML-formatted outline for the tutorial.

3. Implementing the createOutline() function, which calls getOutline() and outputs the generated tutorial outline to the console.

With these two files, the StackExchange Tutorial Themes application can fetch recent questions from StackExchange forums, analyze them using ChatGPT, and generate relevant tutorial topics and outlines to aid DevRel professionals in their content creation process.

Putting StackExchange Tutorial Themes to Work in Your DevRel Strategy

Integrating the StackExchange Tutorial Themes app into your DevRel strategy can streamline your content creation process and ensure that you are addressing the most relevant topics for your developer community. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to use the app effectively, using the built-in Express app included in the code:

1. Choose a StackExchange forum: Select the StackExchange forum that is most relevant to your target audience or technology. Update the apiUrl variable in the index.js file with the appropriate forum URL.

2. Fetch and analyze recent questions: Run the index.js file to fetch the most recent questions from the chosen StackExchange forum, analyze the questions with the ChatGPT API, and save the generated tutorial topics to the database.

3. Set up the server: Ensure the server.js file is properly configured, including importing necessary modules, setting up the Express app, and defining the endpoints for the application.

4. Launch the application: Start the server by running the server.js file. This will serve the application on the specified port, allowing you to interact with the user interface and API.

5. Review and select tutorial topics: Access the application through your web browser and browse through the extracted tutorial topics saved in the database. Select those that best align with your DevRel goals and target audience's needs. You can also prioritize topics based on their relevance and community interest.

6. Generate outlines for selected topics: For each selected tutorial topic, use the /topics/:id endpoint, which internally calls the createOutline() function from the create-outline.js file to generate a detailed outline. This will provide a structured roadmap for creating the tutorial content.

7. Customize the tutorial outlines: Review the generated outlines and make any necessary adjustments to tailor them to your specific needs and style. With a clear roadmap in place, you can focus on fleshing out the tutorial and delivering valuable insights to the developer community.

By following these steps and integrating the StackExchange Tutorial Themes application into your DevRel strategy, you can efficiently identify relevant tutorial topics and generate outlines for your content, ensuring that you stay on top of emerging trends and address the most pressing needs of your developer community.

Conclusion

The StackExchange Tutorial Themes application is an interesting and practical way for DevRel professionals to find tutorial topics that truly resonate with the developer community. By tapping into the potential of AI with ChatGPT and the StackExchange API, we're able to come up with relevant and helpful learning resources that empower developers and encourage community engagement.

I encourage you to get involved and give it a try - help contribute to the code and share your experiences using the tool. It's a great opportunity to learn from each other and explore how AI can make a difference in developer relations. As AI technology keeps progressing, it's going to have an even bigger impact on our field, and I'm genuinely excited to see where it takes us. So, let's join forces and work together to create an even better, more efficient, and user-centered DevRel experience.

This article was written with the assistance of ChatGPT. ChatGPT created the outline, and I wrote the contents based on the outline.