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GitHub Copilot is generally available

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Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#662
post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps curly braces are useful after all.

Not that OP's problem is curly braces per se (they would make the error more obvious, but they wouldn't help with a missing return call), but since we're taling about them... The insistence of a lot of smart people on using whitespace for logic purposes is THE most baffling thing in the IT space. And I mean that. Why use some, oh I dont know, CHARACTER, to write down what you mean, why not instead use a NON CHARACTER…

The insistence of a lot of smart (?) people on NOT using whitespace for logic purposes is THE most baffling thing in the IT space. And I mean that.

If you look at your typical C-like code, it is already whitespace-oriented, you just manually add the braces as line noise, to make it easier to write a compiler for the language (although even that may not be true). It is like using one character variable names, which - other than the trivial places - makes your code harder to read.

If you want to write deeply nested logic in a function: well, don't. But if you insist, I'm not sure how curly braces help you in this case.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I explained why I thought it didn't provide value to me, in the context of having a different background than the person I responded to. Nothing malicious intended in that. I find you having to write 3 long paragraphs of bullshit about that to be the truly astonishing thing here. Holy crap.

Not commenting on the actual riff the two of you are having. However I dislike the come back of “you wrote so much”. I’m overly verbose. I have adhd. So what. Having to hear school ground retorts insinuating I care so much because I write too much is tiresome. Is it even a bad thing? Is it even logical to say writing more than average is somehow an inherent flaw?

Now you're just doing the same: reading something that's not there and accusing me of insinuating stuff...

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#664

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be your estimate for how much time it saves?

I get the desire to ask that question, but it also feels like the main thing Copilot saves me is energy, which can’t be quantified in a very useful way. You’ll just have to take our words for it. Like, writing a really boring unit test might only take 60 seconds, but if Copilot can do it for me (even if I have to quickly scan it for correctness) that saves me… well something other than 60 seconds. It sure feels like…

Why write that boring unit test at all? If it is not only boring, but also automatically generated, then what value does it add to the code? I would argue it actually _decreases_ the value, because you now have that much more code to maintain and understand. 90% of unit tests people write are garbage according to my experience.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#665
post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it perhaps be you not coding for a living (and being lower in skill as you say) that make you think it's worth it? For me the bottleneck is seldom typing. And while Copilot can sometimes dish out some more advanced stuff, I still have to verify it and understand it. Since I can basically solve every problem I encounter day-to-day, Copilot's contribution is not that useful.

I code for a living and have done so for over a decade now, and I completely agree with their analysis. Does it save you $10 worth of your time within a month? Comments here are wildly uninformed. I see comments complaining about copyright that seem to have no awareness of either fair use doctrine prior law as it relates to partial usage nor the details regarding how infrequently Copilot generates identifiable verbat…

> I see comments complaining about copyright that seem to have no awareness of either fair use doctrine prior law as it relates to partial usage

My jurisdiction has no concept of fair use.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not commenting on the actual riff the two of you are having. However I dislike the come back of “you wrote so much”. I’m overly verbose. I have adhd. So what. Having to hear school ground retorts insinuating I care so much because I write too much is tiresome. Is it even a bad thing? Is it even logical to say writing more than average is somehow an inherent flaw?

Now you're just doing the same: reading something that's not there and accusing me of insinuating stuff...

Who cares really. If a person doesn't find it useful, then just don't use it but if other people find it useful that those people will use it.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#667
post #447
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

from Microsofts standpoint the shot across the bow for open source licenses is clear: do you have enough lawyers and experts to convince a gerontocracy of the legislative branch of the US government that its not "okay because its AI" because if you dont, then thanks for the code nerd.

If you think the US doesn't have enough existing legal theory on copyright to litigate this then you're crazy. It will be on MS to show that it isn't infringement.

Now add in 100 other legal jurisdictions. I haven't looked, but I assume Copilot is available outside the US?

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#668
I've been using Copilot for a few months now and in general it's really impressive. For me it's been a very useful autocomplete for repetitive tasks - writing tests, scaffolding components, utility functions, etc - Copilot feels like magic sometimes, it just knows what I need to do and provides the code template almost instantly.

Will be paying for the public version, absolutely worth the money in a single day's coding alone.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not commenting on the actual riff the two of you are having. However I dislike the come back of “you wrote so much”. I’m overly verbose. I have adhd. So what. Having to hear school ground retorts insinuating I care so much because I write too much is tiresome. Is it even a bad thing? Is it even logical to say writing more than average is somehow an inherent flaw?

Now you're just doing the same: reading something that's not there and accusing me of insinuating stuff...

> “I find you having to write 3 long paragraphs of bullshit about that to be the truly astonishing thing here”

What I wrote applies. An argument could be yours is diff because of specifying it is bullshit. Yet that’s what most responses are about. A mix of statements like:

“why do you care so much”/“lol you care so much” or “wow you really wrote that much” or “your long writing is all BS and excuses”.

I don’t want to attack you as a person or make you feel bad. No insinuation or implication. I am directly saying stuff. If I did read something that’s not there, I’m up for being shown how I am wrong.

Re: GitHub Copilot is generally available

#670
post #195

I've been using Copilot non-stop on every hobby project I have ever since they've let me in (2021/07/13) and I am honestly flabbergasted they think it's worth 10$/mo. My experience using it till this day is the following: - It's an amazing all-rounder autocomplete for most boilerplate code. Generally anything that someone who's spent 5 minutes reading the code can do, Copilot can do just as well. - It's terrible if y…

To me it's easily worth twice that, so I'm happy to pay 100/year.

Jetbrains costs $150/y. IMO, an autocomplete is not worth $100/y at all, let alone $200/y.
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