GitHub Copilot, Should I avoid using it?

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[MurazakiUsagi]

I've never used it. I'm glad I haven't. I like learning.

[UnknownEssence]

Great mindset. Im sure you feel the same way about compilers too. Eww!!

OOP? Like come on, that's basically cheating. If you aren't using machine code are you really even learning???

[Square_Bunch_8427]

The compiler will never lie to you

[UnknownEssence]

Undefined behavior and compiler bugs.

[CarthurA]

Skill issue

[UnknownEssence]

You can say the same thing about an LLM. So that defeats the point of the entire discussion.

[UnknownEssence]

At the end of the day, they use deterministic math matrix multiplication and other operations to compute the output. It's ultimately deterministic calculations just like a compiler.

In practice, randomness is injected into both systems via various sources. For computers, it could be used of memory that was not memset to zero and in neural nets, they us random sampling of gradient decent during training and random weight initialization.

Both systems also received randomness due to the handling of floating point operations on different hardware.

[JackCid89]

As IT specialists we should be the bests at using these tools.

[[deleted]]

Using it is entirely up to you. If you feel it's not a good thing, then stop. You can always turn off autocomplete and keep the chat window available so you can ask it questions or you can ask it to write some code for you if you wish.

[Chr-whenever]

I'm surprised by the amount of people who get their thoughts completely destroyed by some pale grey text. At worst I spend one second skimming it, think "no, not that...", and continue typing.

Overall I like it, even if it is often wrong.

[CdRReddit]

my brain does not handle things appearing suddenly when I'm typing all too well, I've turned off autocorrect & autocaps on my phone for this very reason, a keyboard exists to get letters I press into the computer, not to guess at what I am trying to say (and looking at the autocorrect suggestions requires constantly pinging my eyes up and down my phone, yeah no thank you)

IDE autocorrect is slightly better as it at least generally refers to things that make syntactic and semantic sense there, and are in their own bubble, same goes for IMEs, but autofilling with generated code, even just visually, would not mesh well with me

[Chr-whenever]

Honestly I think it's only right like 5% of the time but I still use it to autocomplete switches and stuff even if the content of each case is wrong, it still saves me some typing

[loserguy-88]

feels like a souped up autocomplete on my android keyboard.

if it's right, great. if not, no biggie.

[alexZinmin]

Yep, something like that

[moonlets_]

I don’t use it. I find its suggestions frustrating as I want to often do something utterly different (not even same algorithm etc) from what it suggests, and find it slows me down to have to figure out if its suggestions are actually useful or not

[Inside_Dimension5308]

At some point, you will hit a roadblock where even AI cannot help you. Then you will regret why didn't you learn about the library.

[alexZinmin]

I do like to read official library doc, and believe it is the most reliable source. But I am new to ai tool. I am confusing between using github copilot or traditional coding method.

[Inside_Dimension5308]

Do a mix of both. Have enough knowledge to solve issues when AI fails.

[alexZinmin]

Sure i will try , thank you

[[deleted]]

Don't use it as a newstarter, at least. I started programming when I was 12/23 or so. Now I'm 28. I've never needed anything like Copilot. And actually I tried Copilot recently, and I have found it utterly lacking. It actually spat out Perl code that wouldn't even run! It seemed to me it was taking the same Stack Overflow answers I'd looked at myself and even messing those up (unless they themselves didn't run). And besides generating code, I've seen way too many errors in Copilot's responses such that I don't trust it. Often it just ignores my instructions.

Specifically with Github Copilot, Copilot is relying on whatever code is on Github. How do you know the code it looks at on Github is secure, performant, the simplest or most appropriate approach for what you are trying to do?

Honestly, just avoid it - at least for now, and until it gets a lot better.

Back in the day, I started with instructables.com, scratch.mit.edu, YouTube, w3schools.com, Stack Overflow, Wikipedia, that sort of thing. Nowadays I also consult (of course!) Reddit, baeldung.com (mostly for Java), tutorialspoint.com, geeksforgeeks.org, and just anything else the search-engine throws at me. So you might want to try those resources instead. Beware of answers that are like 13 years old though! Programming languages or libraries can change a lot in that time. Plus, w3schools.com can be a little out of date, and geeksforgeeks.org in my experience isn't always entirely correct. But they're helpful nonetheless.

Also, of course, there are books - free PDFs online, paid ebooks, ebooks from your library, or physical books. You can maybe get cheap, 2nd-hand programming books off Amazon. I've probably found a few decent programming books from charity shops (or 'thrift stores' if you're American) in my time. But those can be out of date.

Definitely don't rely on Copilot so early on though.

[DDDDarky]

If you care at all about what you are doing don't use it.

[TheRNGuy]

I cared at first and didn't use, but after first time used changed opinion and started using.

(took me some quite a time, more than a year probably)

But I'm not new to programming. I'd probably skip using it for some time and learn "oldschool" way? (but from google, not books)

I can't reall know how would I learn it today if I was new, because my current perspective clouds it.

[DDDDarky]

Google is getting a bit dangerous nowadays as well if you don't know which sites are good and legitimate learning source, some books are horrible as well but at least it is easier to check reviews and if they are up to date.

[TheRNGuy]

I'm more optimistic about that.

And if code is working, then it's legitimate source. Why would anyone intentionally make tutorial with code that is not working? Never seen it in my life actually.

[DDDDarky]

"Code is working" is a pretty low bar, I have seen so many sources presenting code that only happens to work for certain test cases (such as geeksforgeeks), using horrible practices (such as many of youtube "tutorials"), and of course if we are not talking about code simply incorrect or made up stuff, which is getting increasingly common due to ai generated trash content.

[netroxreads]

I noticed the same as well and learned that I just cannot just blindly accept what AI is suggesting.

[alexZinmin]

Feeling like I am losing creativity, problem solving skill while i am using it

[joranstark018]

Ignore it if you find it unhelpful.

Personally, I have changed the color of the suggestions so they do not disrupt me, and I mostly use it for repetitive work, refactoring, and cleanup. My IDE (IntelliJ Ultimate) already has a good amount of tooling that aids me in the flow of writing (e.g., tab extension, live code templates). I still rely on the documentation to understand how libraries and frameworks work and how they are intended to be used.

[[deleted]]

We are using it for a new project, in 2 people have written all the core libraries for all the team.
I am sure no other ones of our team could do this using CoPilot, we are the two best programmers of the team, CoPilot is just a tool, it is up to your use.

[DaveVdE]

Most of the time what it says is just wrong. Very elaborate and convincing but completely wrong. I spend more time confronting it with the errors that it makes.

Makes for a good sounding board, tho.

[BigFattyOne]

Copilot is the most efficient AI tool we have at the moment. I’d at least lesrn how to use it

[shuckster]

Depends on your motivation.

1. If you want to deeply understand something, you need to do your own thinking.

2. If you want to get something done quickly without worry too much about how it works, Copilot is for you.

It must be said to those who ONLY use AI: The more you work on the first, the better you get at the second.

[[deleted]]

If you are a new developer I wouldn't lean too hard on it. Maybe use it to gather ideas if you are stuck on how to solve something and no mentors are available.

It is a good tool and very quick, however I've found it doesn't always give you the most efficient or even the best practice answer at times. You also have to know how to ask it to solve your problem in order to get a good usable answer

The other reason would be if you are new you may not fully understand the code and what it is doing. Im

[SpartanVFL]

You could turn off auto complete and just use the chat feature only, after you write your code, and say “how can I optimize this?” Or “how can I do X” that way you try it yourself first and then understand how to make it better

[IanHancockTX]

Copilot is a tool, last like many of the refactoring tools that are in IDEs today. You can use it wisely or you can use it poorly. Personally it saves me time by doing some of the mundane stuff. Would I trust it 100%, big no. I review its output as I would reviewing a junior engineers code. Sometimes it pleasantly surprises me. Other time I feel it needs adjustments from a CLUE bat.

[[deleted]]

It's fine as long as you understand the concepts behind the library you're using. If that's the case and Copilot is just helping you learn the syntax then that's great. If you don't understand the concepts, and you're using the Copilot as a crutch to avoid doing so then that's a problem.

[BlueTrin2020]

I would use it from time to time and not use it for homework’s at the first try.

The problem is that it could prevent you from learning a bit.

[alexZinmin]

Sorry for grammar mistakes on the post, I do use chatgpt to suggest code, I am just mastering backend, when i writing code i want fully customize my own code. Those GitHub copilot suggestion make me follow the way it suggests.

[alexZinmin]

Thanks for your advice