[andreisbc]

I've been using Copilot for 3 weeks in a typical web project: typescript, react, css. Feedback:

- when i declare a variable or function using a suggestive name, it correctly autocompletes what i want 50% of the time and it also takes into account the context; sometimes it just blows my mind how accurate it can be.

- sometimes it doesn't autocomplete even if i delete the line to start over

- i changed the way i code: i rely on Copilot more and more. i start typing my code and i know the prompt will correctly autocomplete my intention, but if it doesn't, it will a couple of lines later. If i stop to think, it goes ahead of me

- it's now faster for me to get an answer from Copilot than searching on Stackoverlow.

Copilot is a great companion, please make it even better! Welcome to the future my friends

[avianes]

I have an honest question, do you feel you are saving time? And if so, is this really the case?

Having clever code proposals is surely a big advantage and seems to be a big time saver. But it also means that you have to constantly switch between writing your code and reading/analyzing code that you didn't write yourself, to check if it's correct, if it handles all the cases, etc.

These situations, where we go from one task to another, are typically the kind of situations where we have a very bad perception of the time passed.

It would be interesting to investigate whether this undeniably saves time or not

[gremlinsinc]

I feel it definitely saves time, if you can write a decent comment code, and the function name is descriptive, that's all you need. The functions write themselves. It's better if you follow the single-responsibility principle or at least don't have too many side effects in your methods.

Often times the comment isn't even needed and just a method name is enough to get it churning out the right code.. I might change a variable name, and some minor stuff but I don't have to search for little things I normally forget ...like framework sugar syntax I've used before but can't remember off my mind but when I see it, I know oh yeah that looks right...

[snypox]

The most insane is that it even autocompletes comments. It’s honestly scary sometimes.

[muthuraj57]

Comment autocomplete is very neat. I use copilot for comments more than for code.

[switch007]

What kind of comment is the result? More “what” or more “why”?

[phamilton]

Stuff like "This is " becomes "This is only temporary until we get more data".

Which sometimes is exactly what you wanted to say...

[layer8]

Copilot may be the unexpected solution to the holy grail of code reuse. :)

[elcritch]

And bug re-use is now 50% faster! Just kidding… mostly.

[superasn]

Yes I love it too. It takes about 2-3 seconds to generate the suggestions so even when I know what I'm going to type next I just wait for it to do it for me since I know there is a high chance that it will get it correctly (I'm talking 5 to 6 lines of code). Plus it acts as a reinforcing feedback that what I want to write is indeed correct.

It is definitely the future and it's here to stay and get better with time. I'm super excited!

[Vespasian]

I love it. It removes the more tedious parts of my work and I've found it to give me time to think about the overall system.

I'm wondering what it will cost me (read my employer) once it is out of beta.

Considering I am willing to bet that it's gonna be a fair bit.

[nefitty]

There are open versions of GPT so presumably, one could train an open version of Codex. It would be really terrible if Codex was made inaccessible to swaths of people in the name of commercial interests.

[sillysaurusx]

GitHub sent OpenAI something like 57 terabytes of data from GitHub. Good luck scraping that.

(I helped build The Pile, the largest openly-available text dataset.)

You're right that you theoretically can do this, but doing it in practice requires either funding or time.

[nefitty]

Yeah, I thought of mentioning that but wasn't sure how in the weeds anyone would want to go lol Besides, I'm optimistic about what an enterprising individual is capable of when faced with those sorts of limits... It's those clear bounds that set creativity free.

By the way, I'm so fucking stoked that Shawn Presser of The Pile responded to me. Your work is proto-solarpunk incarnate. Really amazing contributions dude, can't wait to see what's next.

[sillysaurusx]

I'm really happy to hear that. Thank you.

When I started out, I only wanted to make some small contribution somewhere. It's really surreal that there are people rooting for me now. I'll do my best to continue to contribute in ways that I can.

You can too, by the way. There's not a lot of difference between me and you. I believe in you.

[nefitty]

I was literally sitting here trying to stop the waves of sadness I'm feeling from not meeting my own expectations. Bumping into a kindred spirit that's getting shit done really helps. Thank you for the nudge.