The Copilot Pause and AI Generated Code
So how much does AI really increase developer productivity?
How often do you suffer from Copilot Pause? Come on, be honest now. Share below for a bit of Friday fun and frolics.
I’ve been using GitHub Copilot since its release. Due to the nature of what I do, I don’t really get to specialize in a particular language or tech stack any more. I’m often helping someone else, switching from one project to another or one client to another.
Any polyglots on here? Do you find that you don’t really think in any one language anymore, but some weird combination or no language at all, just constructs and then ever so occasionally you need to turn that into a particular language, but that language doesn’t quite have the words to express what you want?
Well, I get that with computer programming languages too, except that while I don’t (generally) forget the syntax of real language, I will sometimes forget the syntax or function name in the programming language I happen to be working with at the time. Copilot is great in these scenarios and my main use for it. I don’t let it write any logic for me.
And I’ve found that’s all I really use it for. Most of the time when I’m writing code, I know exactly what I want it to do, on each line. I don’t need Copilot to do that for me. I do like that it reminds me how I express that in the particular programming language I’m working in today.
News this week then that Copilot doesn’t, overall, increase productivity and can actually increase the number of bugs in code wasn’t particularly surprising.
Shenisha
I’ve seen a few posts from people choosing to wholesale abandon AI code tools too. This is a far cry from the general wisdom that was espoused a year ago that “AI will take your job” or at the very least another developer using AI will.
Overall, a bit more balance in how we use AI to create code is welcome!
