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GitHub Copilot loses an average of $20 per user per month

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Re: GitHub Copilot loses an average of $20 per user per month

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At 600$+/y subscription fees, it makes sense to own a beefy NUC with 32Gb and a speedy SSD to run the model locally.

I would hope developers value their time at least 100USD/hour. So unless the local option is less than 5 hours per year of maintenance, the subscription makes sense.

One's time is free. Many developpers make less than 3k$ /m net, so it still makes sense.

Re: GitHub Copilot loses an average of $20 per user per month

#192
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the point. And you're also completely wrong. Copilot is extremely useful and in general a huge timesaver. Yes if you tell it to write an entire program it will get it wrong and you'll spend some time verifying things. But that's not a sane way to use it. As a very clever auto-complete it's fantastic. It's also pretty great at getting past "blank page syndrome". Even if what it spits out is wrong it's still…

No I didn't miss the point, not even slightly. You didn't read mine and are blinded by the insane virtues. Do you really think it's fine blowing 400 watts because you can't be arsed to think or do not have the creative intelligence to get over the blank page syndrome and have to lean on a crutch?

> Do you really think it's fine blowing 400 watts because you can't be arsed to think or do not have the creative intelligence to get over the blank page syndrome and have to lean on a crutch?

Yes, I think it is absolutely 100% fine.

Re: GitHub Copilot loses an average of $20 per user per month

#195
post #162
post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100 per developer?

Obviously. At $1200/yr it's pocket change.

maybe. but at 300 devs you are talking 360k a year for example. but then i don't live in a country where devs make 300k a year ;)

Re: GitHub Copilot loses an average of $20 per user per month

#196
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do suck unconditionally. They're like having a mediocre person working with you that you have to verify and validate all the time that sucks up a ton of money and electricity and generally does bad things to the environment. Edit: I haven't even started on the social and political impact this has either.

You missed the point. And you're also completely wrong. Copilot is extremely useful and in general a huge timesaver. Yes if you tell it to write an entire program it will get it wrong and you'll spend some time verifying things. But that's not a sane way to use it. As a very clever auto-complete it's fantastic. It's also pretty great at getting past "blank page syndrome". Even if what it spits out is wrong it's still…

I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, and admittedly I have only tried the free version of ChatGPT (3.5), but it basically never works for me. Not even for relatively simple things.

From my past history:

"Is "192.168.1.4" included in the subnet "192.168.0.0/16"?" -> No

"Check whether a widget overflows in flutter" -> returns a function that cannot be made to works even with a lot of massaging (uses stuff that does not exist)

"Write a parser for this multiline format in C++ (describe format)" -> parser only read first line

Admittedly a trick one: "Can you give me a C++ function to merge 2 uint32_t and one uint16_t into a unique uint64_t?" -> happily gives an answer

Sometimes it is salvageable, and sometimes it can provide ways I did not consider to solve a problem (though the proposed solution is usually broken), but usually I would have been faster to do it myself than to try to fix whatever it gives me.

I have basically given up on it, except for some generic "how would you solve problem X?", and when I see people talking about it, it feels like a totally different world.

Re: GitHub Copilot loses an average of $20 per user per month

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the point. And you're also completely wrong. Copilot is extremely useful and in general a huge timesaver. Yes if you tell it to write an entire program it will get it wrong and you'll spend some time verifying things. But that's not a sane way to use it. As a very clever auto-complete it's fantastic. It's also pretty great at getting past "blank page syndrome". Even if what it spits out is wrong it's still…

I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, and admittedly I have only tried the free version of ChatGPT (3.5), but it basically never works for me. Not even for relatively simple things. From my past history: "Is "192.168.1.4" included in the subnet "192.168.0.0/16"?" -> No "Check whether a widget overflows in flutter" -> returns a function that cannot be made to works even with a lot of massaging (uses stuff that do…

Yeah you are doing it wrong.

> "Is "192.168.1.4" included in the subnet "192.168.0.0/16"?" -> No

ChatGPT is not good at numbers or complex maths like this.

> Check whether a widget overflows in flutter

I mean this would be closed as unclear on StackOverflow, but again, this is basically asking ChatGPT to write an entire function. It can do a good stab but it's not going to get it correct.

Copilot isn't for that sort of thing. Let me give you a more realistic autocomplete example from my code:

    std::fs::write(&sv_path, sv).expect("error writing top.sv");
    std::fs::write(&rs_path, rs).expect("error writing top.rs");
    std::fs::write(&cargo_toml_path, cargo_toml).expect("error writing Cargo.toml");
    std::fs::write(&cpp_path
It completes `, cpp).expect("error writing main.cpp");` which is actually exactly what I had. I may have used Copilot to write that; I don't remember. The point is it is 100% correct and saved me writing all that. Traditional autocomplete can't compete with that.

However even for "do it all for me" queries it can still be useful. For example I asked:

> I have a C++ process paused in a debugger (lldb). It is consuming a lot of memory. Is there any way I can see what is using the memory? E.g. a heap profiler that can attach to the process?

It got it wrong and told me to run the process under Valgrind. I said:

> Those instructions aren't for attaching to an existing process.

And it told me about the Heaptrack project with can do exactly what I want. I can see why search engines are integrating this asap. Even though it hallucinates, it does that infrequently enough that it's still really useful. I mean it hallucinates frequently but even so it is very useful.

Perhaps a better example is this:

> Write a C++ program to run a child process and send data to its stdin and stdout while it is running.

After 2 more prompts I got it to output the code below. This code is not correct. But the fixes to make it work are relatively minor, and EASILY less work than writing it all from scratch.

In a few years we will look on people that don't use Copilot (or similar) like people that don't use IDEs. They're hurting their own productivity out of principal.

-------

    #include 
    #include 
    #include 
    #include 
    #include 

    class ChildProcess {
    public:
        ChildProcess() : pid(-1), pipefd{-1, -1} {}

        ~ChildProcess() {
            if (pid != -1) {
                close(pipefd[1]);  // Close write end of the pipe
                waitpid(pid, nullptr, 0);
            }
        }

        bool create(const std::string& command, const std::vector& arguments) {
            if (pipe(pipefd) == -1) {
                std::cerr  args;
                args.reserve(arguments.size() + 2);
                args.push_back(const_cast(command.c_str()));
                for (const std::string& arg : arguments) {
                    args.push_back(const_cast(arg.c_str()));
                }
                args.push_back(nullptr);

                // Execute the child process
                execvp(command.c_str(), args.data());

                // execvp() only returns if there's an error
                std::cerr  0) {
                    buffer[bytesRead] = '\0';
                    output = buffer;
                }
            }
            return output;
        }

        std::string readLine() {
            std::string output;
            if (pid != -1) {
                char buffer;
                ssize_t bytesRead;
                while ((bytesRead = ::read(pipefd[0], &buffer, 1)) > 0) {
                    output.push_back(buffer);
                    if (buffer == '\n') {
                        break;
                    }
                }
            }
            return output;
        }

    private:
        pid_t pid;
        int pipefd[2];
    };

    int main() {
        ChildProcess childProcess;
        std::vector arguments = {"arg1", "arg2"};
        if (childProcess.create("child_process", arguments)) {
            childProcess.write("Hello, child process!");

            std::string output = childProcess.read(1024);
            std::cout 

Re: GitHub Copilot loses an average of $20 per user per month

#198

AI is such a huge expectations dichotomy. For those of us used to the continual disappointment that pre-LLM AI was, the current crop of LLM's are amazing, mind blowing things. We start raving about them, so other people take a look expecting that modern LLM's are the greatest thing since sliced bread. They're not quite that, so we get HN comments complaining that AI sucks.

I’m not sure about this pre-LLM AI being disappointing take. What are we considering as AI? AI encompasses all manner of fields. The face detection in my iPhone, nest doorbell works fantastically. The DSG in my car learns how I shift, fraud detection in finance is heavily driven by ML and typically very effective. It may not be helpful to you, but product recommendations and targeted advertising are ML driven and incredibly effective. They may not be exciting uses, but they’re incredibly helpful.

Re: GitHub Copilot loses an average of $20 per user per month

#199
post #195
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously. At $1200/yr it's pocket change.

maybe. but at 300 devs you are talking 360k a year for example. but then i don't live in a country where devs make 300k a year ;)

In California it’s like 1% payroll at most for much more than 1% gain in efficiency. Very easy decision.

Re: GitHub Copilot loses an average of $20 per user per month

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the point. And you're also completely wrong. Copilot is extremely useful and in general a huge timesaver. Yes if you tell it to write an entire program it will get it wrong and you'll spend some time verifying things. But that's not a sane way to use it. As a very clever auto-complete it's fantastic. It's also pretty great at getting past "blank page syndrome". Even if what it spits out is wrong it's still…

I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, and admittedly I have only tried the free version of ChatGPT (3.5), but it basically never works for me. Not even for relatively simple things. From my past history: "Is "192.168.1.4" included in the subnet "192.168.0.0/16"?" -> No "Check whether a widget overflows in flutter" -> returns a function that cannot be made to works even with a lot of massaging (uses stuff that do…

I got tired of it recommending imaginary libraries. Or saying real libraries couldn't do things they could.
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