[jazzyjackson]

100%

The thing ive most enjoyed is that it forces me to write out what I want to do in english before getting stuck in the weeds of how the code ought to work.

I've found if I explain the whole program ahead of time (the other day I wrote some python that converted the local time to display on a 13x13 grid of LEDs) co-pilot can write 90% of the code without me, just translating my explanation into python.

I thinking knowing how to express yourself to AI will be a unique skillset akin to being "good at googling"

[tucif]

> co-pilot can write 90% of the code without me, just translating my explanation into python.

I fear copilot may encourage these type of pseudo-code comments. The most valuable thing the AI doesn't know is WHY the code should do what it does.

Months later, we'll get to debug code that "nobody" wrote and find no hints of why it should behave that way, only comments stating what the code also says.

Seems we're replacing programming for reverse engineering generated code.

[spicybright]

I can understand where you're coming from, but if a developer commits auto-pilot code without understanding it, that's not really auto-pilot's fault.

That dev could have done the exact same thing with stack over flow snippets. And create the same situation.

Sure its easier to make mistakes when copilot suggestions are so readily available, but its just a tool that needs to be wielded properly as any other.

It feels like an evolution of your typical IDE niceties that modify characters as you type.

I still remember when people were worried autocomplete would lead to code mistakes and variable mix-ups.

Now the one argument against this is if we become shielded from the full input and outputs of a tool.

It would work bad, but you could have a "copilot(code_fragment, args, ...)" that makes an executes a snippet blindly, hoping it's correct. That's when it stops being a hammer and starts being a boss looking over your shoulder and telling you what to do.

Fortunately, I think we have a while before AI can reliably spit out useful AST programs. But it could happen eventually.

[jazzyjackson]

hm, that is a conundrum to debug code nobody wrote

on the other hand, if an improved AI comes out in a couple of years, we can feed it the same pseudo-code and enjoy an improved output.

I would rather have a docstring explaining what the code should be doing

I've had co-pilot write its own comments too, my favorite one was, "this is a kind of a hack but it works", very professional indeed!