Ask HN: What is your extension of choice for VS Code AI assistance?

#1

Post by romx » Thu, Sep 19, 2024, 1:48 PM UTC

Could you comment your favorite features of the tool you use?

Re: Ask HN: What is your extension of choice for VS Code AI assistance?

#2

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 19, 2024, 2:05 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What is your extension of choice for VS Code AI assistance?

#3

Post by beretguy » Thu, Sep 19, 2024, 2:47 PM UTC

I’m staying away from any ai extensions.

Re: Ask HN: What is your extension of choice for VS Code AI assistance?

#4

Post by geepytee » Thu, Sep 19, 2024, 10:46 PM UTC

beretguy wrote: post #3

I’m staying away from any ai extensions.

Can I ask why? I personally have been coding with LLMs since the davinci-003 days and don't see myself going back.

Granted I am biased, I am the co-founder of Double which is an extension for VS Code. But that's also why I'm curious to hear why are you against extensions (maybe we can learn from your experience).

Re: Ask HN: What is your extension of choice for VS Code AI assistance?

#5

Post by geepytee » Thu, Sep 19, 2024, 10:50 PM UTC

There are many good extensions with somewhat similar features, the ideal extension might come down to personal preference but I've been building double.bot [0] after spending months using Github Copilot and running into the same bugs over and over (wrote about it here [1]) and I think we've done a good job at building the ideal extension for professional developers.

[0] - https://double.bot/

[1] - https://docs.double.bot/copilot

Re: Ask HN: What is your extension of choice for VS Code AI assistance?

#6

Post by billylo » Fri, Sep 20, 2024, 3:39 AM UTC

I use codeium.com - chose it mainly because it has solid plugins for Xcode and VS Code.

Re: Ask HN: What is your extension of choice for VS Code AI assistance?

#7

Post by beretguy » Fri, Sep 20, 2024, 9:20 AM UTC

geepytee wrote: post #4

beretguy wrote: post #3

I’m staying away from any ai extensions.

Can I ask why? I personally have been coding with LLMs since the davinci-003 days and don't see myself going back. Granted I am biased, I am the co-founder of Double which is an extension for VS Code. But that's also why I'm curious to hear why are you against extensions (maybe we can learn from your experience).

1. I enjoy understanding every single line of code I write for my program. I don’t want anything to generate code on my behalf, and want to write “every line myself” and understand what I’m doing and what I’m putting in my program.

2. Trust. I don’t trust AI to generate code without mistakes.

3. I enjoy coding. Why would I want someone else write code on my behalf? What am I supposed to do then? Imagine you enjoy cooking. But then, say, your spouse comes to the kitchen, pushes you aside and does all the cooking instead. You can’t enjoy cooking anymore. If AI is going to write code instead of me I’ll just find a different job/hobby.