[mtriassi]

This feels more or less in line with what my team has found, we gave everyone a copilot seat in our Github org, and anecdotally speaking it feels like we've seen roughly a 5-10% increase in productivity. This is of course self reported and not measured against any metrics. Assuming we're right about that, its an easy sell when we account for what our internal hourly rate is.

we also found the same as the OP, It's good for simple problems or boilerplate, not great for more complex problems.

[jasonjmcghee]

I use copilot and write a whole lot of code every day. It's very very hard for me to believe anyone could get a 5-10% boost in productivity. It's often incorrect and when it is correct, it's often trivial.

It is a value add, but I'd put it closer to 0.5% if that. Over, say, 8 hours of coding time, it might save me a couple of minutes total.

Which, from a company expense perspective is still worth it, but an order of magnitude less than your anecdote.

It's very hard for me to envision how copilot could save someone that kind of time.

[mpalmer]

I'm not diagnosed but I almost certainly have something like ADHD. It feels like my brain will take the most insignificant excuse to start paying attention to something else. Copilot boosts my productivity by 25-30%, easily, by removing many of these "excuses".

I am an experienced programmer, but sometimes I'll have a clear intention in my head of what I want to do, and the knowledge/experience of what code would accomplish that thing, and I still back away from it and start looking at something else, whether work, social media, whatever. Writing this, I know it might sound ridiculous or lazy, but it's true.

Copilot bridges this gap, often miraculously. The gap between thought and code is shortened, and the windows of time where I might lose focus seem to be drastically shortened.

For me, the key is that I do know how to write most of the code that Copilot writes for me, I'm just not good at actually writing it, or at least doing so in a sustained, consistent way.

[yunwal]

I feel like a lot of this is just that ADHD brains (and brains in general) want to work at the right level of abstraction. If I have to add headers to 20 word docs, it’s probably a bit quicker to do that manually than to write a script to do it, but I write the script anyway because the alternative is too boring. A lot of code is like that too, and “getting the AI to understand what I’m trying to get it to do” is more interesting.

[jasonjmcghee]

Super interesting perspective and insight. I really appreciate you chiming in. Hadn't considered something like this.

[coolcoder613]

I can relate to that experience.

[whalesalad]

Interesting, the experience is very different for me. What language are you working with? I find it to be pretty strong in my Python and JS projects.

[jasonjmcghee]

Many, including python + js. What does it provide? How do you use it?

[b20000]

what is the cost of analyzing the proposed solution and fixing it so it does what you want and how does that compare to not using AI and writing the code yourself?

[Smeevy]

That's an excellent question. I'm typically able to stay focused on a task in spite of distractions, but working with generated nonsense while coding something new has derailed me quite a few times.

The novelty has definitely worn off for me, at least.