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I Spent 24 Hours with GitHub Copilot Workspaces

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Re: I Spent 24 Hours with GitHub Copilot Workspaces

#71
post #65
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't do that you'll run into the same problems as you would if you hire a contractor to build your codebase without understanding what they did for you. I guess the difference is now that the contractor is cheap or free (because it’s a LLM), whereas in the old days you’d either hire a person to do the work and not understand or pick up a book and figure it out yourself (or go to school, or whatever). Figuri…

I have a feeling that if there was not a healthy amount of competition in the space, the prices would start to trend towards the cost of human work.

And the self-hosted options are better than nothing, I'm currently getting code autocompletions via Starcoder+TabbyML on an M1 MacBook pro.

Re: I Spent 24 Hours with GitHub Copilot Workspaces

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if you try that you'll find yourself supplying an enormous amount of context you didn't expect to have to communicate. Context not even directly related to the code at hand, but about the broader business or industry, past lessons learned, something the CEO said to you last week about the feature, etc. Basically you go from programmer to product manager, except you also get to micromanage a non-sentient program…

What prevents an AI agent from becoming the product manager as well, and communicating with you (the customer) to clarify requirements?

The tenor of the conversation I imagine since it’s a chatbot

Re: I Spent 24 Hours with GitHub Copilot Workspaces

#74
I think AI copilots are great for coding. The IDE and compiler are a second source of truth so you can quickly eliminate AI generated nonsense and figure out what kind of problems it is good at solving.

To me the effect seems similar to going from assembly language to C or from C to Java or Visual Basic. It's a new level of abstraction that saves massive amounts of time.

I think the amount of work for software developers will increase just like it did back then. Many software projects are never started because they will be too expensive. If they can be done by half the number of people in half the time using AI tools, they might get a "go" instead.

Re: I Spent 24 Hours with GitHub Copilot Workspaces

#75

When reading posts such as these, it occurs to me that AI is increasing the rate / lowering the bar for developers to make the jump to leader / architect. Look at the lessons that the author has learned here: * More specificity == better * The importance of clear bulleted delivery items / criteria-for-success * Unspecified details around a general goal is a ripe area for disappointment All of these are things that a…

This isn’t architect level planning. Even a junior developer should be able to work from vague requirements and build a mental like that.

Exactly. Companies relying on architects making all decisions and providing detailed specs are doomed. Architects in general often sucks. Empower any rank to create designs and make technological decisions. They will grow. If you can't trust them you have a problem.
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