[pjc50]

Typesafe languages are potentially a lot better here; they move "see error" to before "run code". Visual Studio or even Eclipse are quite good at inserting parens or quotes for you, warning if they're not there, and providing completion over identifier names to avoid spelling errors.

> One that knows to keep things DRY and creates a function for me when it sees the same similar code written twice

This is potentially an interesting idea.

> One that knows when I wrote an inefficient bubble sort and swaps it out with a faster sorting algorithm etc.

This is also the sort of thing that optimises out your security-critical delay loop or memory wipe.

[andr3w321]

It wouldn't overwrite your code without your approval of course, but if it could at least provide helpful suggestions that I could choose to approve it would be immensely helpful.