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GitHub Copilot available for JetBrains and Neovim

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Re: GitHub Copilot available for JetBrains and Neovim

#421

Post by treesprite82 »

ghoward wrote: post #294
treesprite82 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This means that Google was careful to not make a large amount of copy-righted works publically accessible. Such is not the case for GitHub Copilot in particular Armin Ronacher’s tweet [19] The fast inverse square root algorithm referenced here didn't originate from Quake and is in hundreds of repositories - many with permissive licenses like WTFPL and many including the same comments. It's not really a large amount…

> The fast inverse square root algorithm referenced here didn't originate from Quake Where did it come from then? And what license did the original have? > and is in hundreds of repositories - many with permissive licenses like WTFPL and many including the same comments. If the original was GPL or proprietary, then all of this copies with different licenses are violating the license of the original. Just because it e…

> Where did it come from then? And what license did the original have?

From what I read, the code has been altered and iterated on as it was passed down. The magic number constant is claimed to have been derived by Cleve Moler and Gregory Walsh.

> If the original was GPL or proprietary, then all of this copies with different licenses are violating the license of the original. Just because it exists everywhere does not mean Copilot can use it without violating the original license.

If it was originally proprietary (this predates GPL) I believe the liability would be on whoever took that proprietary code and republished it under MIT/etc.

To be clear, I'm not recommending that you use code you know has been incorrectly licensed. Just that in cases where certain "folk code" is seemingly widely available under permissive terms, Copilot isn't doing much that an honest human wouldn't.

> Key word is "claim". We can test that claim. Or rather, you can, if you have access to Copilot

I don't unfortunately. As a side note, your function already existed in Apache-licensed code. But since it's not in many repositories I'd be willing to bet Copilot won't regurgitate it - I could message around a few people who might be able to try it.

> Nevertheless, a court somewhere (I think South Africa) recently ruled that an AI cannot be an inventor. If an AI cannot be an inventor, why can it hold copyright?

GitHub's intention isn't for Copilot to hold the code's copyright, but for the user to.

Re: GitHub Copilot available for JetBrains and Neovim

#422

Post by stelcodes »

kevingadd wrote: post #177
stelcodes wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, Clojure kinda does that

So the solution to the problems that Copilot tries to solve is "migrate your workplace to Clojure"? Ordinary devs can't do that.

Oh I was just chiming in really, not trying to say anything about copilot

Re: GitHub Copilot available for JetBrains and Neovim

#423

Post by tdiggity »

mikeywazowski wrote: post #365
giuseppeciuni wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I signed up copilot on june... still received nothing unfortunately!!!

I'm sure it'll be coming soon - a colleague of mine signed up shortly after me and received an invite today.

Fast turnaround, got my invite today!

Re: GitHub Copilot available for JetBrains and Neovim

#424

Post by zoomablemind »

wara23arish wrote: post #142

I have a few questions about copilot. I haven’t gotten a chance to use it yet. Is it irrational that this makes me a little anxious about job security over the longterm? Idk why but this was my initial reaction when learning about this. Given the scenario where copilot and its likes becomes used in a widespread manner. Can it be argued that this might improve productivity but stifle innovation? Im pretty early in my…

>...Is it irrational that this makes me a little anxious about job security over the longterm?

Noone knows what future holds, so some anxiety is just a fuel for adaptation.

For example, should Copilot take a widespread use, the number and scale of projects that will have to be maintained expands too. Moreover, making sense of the quilt patchwork of bits and pieces of code, I'd guess, written in many iterations/versions of Copilot's prowess is a very much a secure, if soul-killing, job for many. Not much different from what maintenance jobs are now. You're lucky when a project retains some clear overspanning architecture/style.

Anybody remembers the joys of GUI wizards, with tons of auto-generated code that "just works, just now"? Remember that desire to suggest a healthy rewrite? Well, now you could probably also promise that it would be an even quicker rewrite too!

But even then, the final responsibility for the code is on the programmer. One maybe could forge the code quicker, but code review is still supposed to be a human's job. Hopefully.

Re: GitHub Copilot available for JetBrains and Neovim

#425

Post by zoomablemind »

chii wrote: post #232
mewse wrote: post #213

I’ve never understood the value proposition for Copilot. In terms of difficulty, writing code is maybe on average a two out of ten. On average, maintaining code you wrote recently is probably a three out of ten in terms of difficulty, and maintaining code somebody else wrote or code from a long time ago probably rises to around a five out of ten. Debugging misbehaving code is probably a seven out of ten or higher. Gi…

> value proposition for Copilot. now, instead of copying off stackoverflow, it's gonna be off copilot. It will enable a lot more people to code who otherwise would not. Whether this is a good outcome or not...

>...now, instead of copying off stackoverflow, it's gonna be off copilot.

Eventually, I'm seeing another breed of SO questions, making sense of Copilot suggested fragments and seeking reassurance or alternatives... Then possibly the copying off, just as now.

Re: GitHub Copilot available for JetBrains and Neovim

#426

Post by tornato7 »

krageon wrote: post #400
baby wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you try it? Because I've been using it for weeks and it makes me read these types of comments as "I don't understand the value of the internet" or "what's the purpose of owning a phone". It's night and day if you have it enabled or not. There's just no question about the value proposition once you start using it. I mean, you can tell comments here from people who have actually been using it, and people who have n…

This is a cloud-based code suggestion platform. No corporation with a solid secrecy policy will allow you to use it. For private use; it costs so I prefer just learning the field. What precisely convinced you?

Plenty of corporations trust GitHub itself with their code, why should trusting copilot be any different?

Re: GitHub Copilot available for JetBrains and Neovim

#427

Post by ghoward »

treesprite82 wrote: post #421
ghoward wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fast inverse square root algorithm referenced here didn't originate from Quake Where did it come from then? And what license did the original have? > and is in hundreds of repositories - many with permissive licenses like WTFPL and many including the same comments. If the original was GPL or proprietary, then all of this copies with different licenses are violating the license of the original. Just because it e…

> Where did it come from then? And what license did the original have? From what I read, the code has been altered and iterated on as it was passed down. The magic number constant is claimed to have been derived by Cleve Moler and Gregory Walsh. > If the original was GPL or proprietary, then all of this copies with different licenses are violating the license of the original. Just because it exists everywhere does no…

> GitHub's intention isn't for Copilot to hold the code's copyright, but for the user to.

That is true, so I have two things I can do:

1) I can argue that Copilot is actually the distributor of the code, which means Copilot is infringing, or

2) I can go after the user for infringing, and if I win, that user would not want to use Copilot anymore for liability reasons. Or they could go after Microsoft themselves.

Why not do both? So that's what I am doing, or rather, will do.

Re: GitHub Copilot available for JetBrains and Neovim

#428

Post by ingvul »

mewse wrote: post #213

I’ve never understood the value proposition for Copilot. In terms of difficulty, writing code is maybe on average a two out of ten. On average, maintaining code you wrote recently is probably a three out of ten in terms of difficulty, and maintaining code somebody else wrote or code from a long time ago probably rises to around a five out of ten. Debugging misbehaving code is probably a seven out of ten or higher. Gi…

> I just don’t understand how this is a net time/energy savings?

At the end of the day is all about trust. Do you trust code you find in SO/Copilot to be good enough for your use case?

In my case I do not trust SO code. Whenever I use SO, if I find some snippet that seems to be the code solution I'm looking for, I copy-paste the snippet on my IDE, read through it carefully, rename variable names as needed, handle edge cases, remove unused code, etc., etc. Any code solution I find in SO gives me the "starting" kick, which is about 10% of the total effort of writing code from scratch. The remaining 90% (to understand the code that is being committed) cannot simply go away. I do not expect Copilot will make much of a difference.

Re: GitHub Copilot available for JetBrains and Neovim

#429

Post by throwaway675309 »

JohnAaronNelson wrote: post #260
liquidwax wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copilot also optimizes for speed to a degree. It's akin to advanced auto complete. IntelliJ auto-completion is great. As much as it pains to say this, I don't think I will be as effective writing Java in Vim as much as I am with IntelliJ. The key differentiator is the auto complete speed. Copilot I feel is just auto complete on steroids. It may not be perfect yet, but there is definitely a problem it solves.

Have you used it? My experience was quite atrocious. Copilot is not auto complete. It’s nonsense. I attempted to use it continuously for three weeks. I tried because I know someone who built it and I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. It never prompted me with any code that was useful. It only ever slowed me down and caused me frustration. It’s nothing like Intellisense. It’s just trash.

Could you cite an actual specific example? I have a difficult time believing what you are asserting that it provided absolutely no value at any point - it just sounds like a baseless ad hominem attack.

I find that it's fantastic for typescript and JavaScript allowing me to flesh out the completion of basic data object containers class definitions etc. extremely quickly.

If I don't remember the exact parameters that you have to pass into a certain NPM packages methods it will usually auto prompt me and help me complete it without me having to context switch to a browser and look it up.

Re: GitHub Copilot available for JetBrains and Neovim

#430

Post by stoicjumbotron »

baby wrote: post #289
mewse wrote: post #213

I’ve never understood the value proposition for Copilot. In terms of difficulty, writing code is maybe on average a two out of ten. On average, maintaining code you wrote recently is probably a three out of ten in terms of difficulty, and maintaining code somebody else wrote or code from a long time ago probably rises to around a five out of ten. Debugging misbehaving code is probably a seven out of ten or higher. Gi…

Did you try it? Because I've been using it for weeks and it makes me read these types of comments as "I don't understand the value of the internet" or "what's the purpose of owning a phone". It's night and day if you have it enabled or not. There's just no question about the value proposition once you start using it. I mean, you can tell comments here from people who have actually been using it, and people who have n…

Could not have said it any better. Enabled it a couple of days ago and I was flabbergasted at the results it produced for me.
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