4 ms·

Could it perhaps be you not coding for a living (and being lower in skill as you say) that make you think it's worth it? For me the bottleneck is seldom typing

Could it perhaps be you not coding for a living (and being lower in skill as you say) that make you think it's worth it? For me the bottleneck is seldom typing. And while Copilot can sometimes dish out some more advanced stuff, I still have to verify it and understand it. Since I can basically solve every problem I encounter day-to-day, Copilot's contribution is not that useful.

theshrike79 4y ago
> For me the bottleneck is seldom typing This is one of my pet peeves in this field. People create whole programming languages that are "expressive", just to save typing a few dozen characters and have huge tirades against "verbose" languages that require typing a bunch of boilerplate. If typing the code is the bit that takes the longest for you in a project, stop and take a good look in the mirror. There's something else wrong in the process.
- patrickthebold 4y ago
  For a verbose language the problem isn't the typing it's the reading. On the typing side I agree with you: I don't mind spending 30 minutes typing a bunch of boilerplate. I do mind digging through 100s of lines of code to find the 2 lines that actually do something interesting. Of course, copilot is only going to save you typing time, and you'll have to pay it back at reading time.
  - eat_lemons 4y ago
    I spend 95% of my day reading existing code not writing it, I have no idea what these developers writing code all day work on
- int_19h 4y ago
  "verbose" and "expressive" are on two different axes. Go is neither verbose nor expressive, for example, while XQuery is both verbose and expressive.
- PartiallyTyped 4y ago
  People write languages at higher levels of abstraction not to type fewer characters but to reduce logical errors that can occur, and provide better abstractions over things. An example here is an infinite list. It's far easier to do that in say Haskell and python, applying filters along the way using higher order and curried functions than it is to do it in say C.
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    There is a difference between higher levels of abstraction and having a separate symbol for every single operation imaginable just for the sake of "expressiveness". Yes, you can shove a 20 line function into one line with a ton of weird symbols, but the one reading it after you will need to unroll it anyway to understand it so what's the point?
kromem 4y ago
I code for a living and have done so for over a decade now, and I completely agree with their analysis. Does it save you $10 worth of your time within a month? Comments here are wildly uninformed. I see comments complaining about copyright that seem to have no awareness of either fair use doctrine prior law as it relates to partial usage nor the details regarding how infrequently Copilot generates identifiable verbatim results outside attempts to auto fill empty files in empty projects (which seems outside typical usage). Or complaints that it makes mistakes, as if 90% of those mistakes aren't immediately flagged by the linter. Not only that, but I've found that often when it does make mistakes, it reflects a consistency smell in my own code, such as tripping up on a legacy naming convention that should really be refactored out. If it doesn't save you $10 worth of time, obviously don't use it. Personally I was worried it was going to be more given the ways in which it cuts down on the most boring parts of a high value profession. But insinuating that someone's positive experience of the tool reflects inexperience is a weird gatekeeper flex, and honestly I'm more inclined to think that all the curmudgeonly resistance I see in here to the inevitable march of progress instead reflects old dogs unable to adequately learn new tricks (like how to effectively prompt it).
- eat_lemons 4y ago
  Counterpoint look at the bios lawsuits that IBM won against people who had just seen IBM's code Or the windows xp leak and how that is a mess for wine/proton/reactos devs There is no concept of fair use in code copyright Copilot is 100% a ask for forgiveness later sort of project
- matsemann 4y ago
  It wasn't an attempt at insinuating anything in general, it was just an observation based on the parent comment's own admission. Please remember this from the guidelines > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
  - DantesKite 4y ago
    > It wasn't an attempt at insinuating anything in general, it was just an observation based on the parent comment's own admission. I don't think that's true. When the parent comment made that observation, they attached the caveat they might not be as skilled as others. They were already fully aware their potential lack of skill might affect their opinion of the product. All you did was repeat that same claim back to them, as if they weren't already aware of it which is a pretty uncharitable interpretation. A steelman interpretation that you could've said would assume there are some low-hanging fruit new or inexperienced developers would benefit from greatly (not just typing as you suggest), but once you develop a certain level of skill, Copilot would become less useful for experts such as yourself. If anything, you didn't respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what was said, since you willfully disregarded their own insight into the problem. Then to try and morally lecture someone on their behavior by applying a rule you don't even hold yourself standard to is pretty astonishing.
anaganisk 4y ago
When U say verify isn’t it just like 1 or 2 statement per completion? I’ve never seen it suggest more than that, a glance over the logic it completes with is lot more faster than typing it out in my experience. I spend more time thinking these days, than typing.

theshrike79 4y ago

> For me the bottleneck is seldom typing This is one of my pet peeves in this field. People create whole programming languages that are "expressive", just to save typing a few dozen characters and have huge tirades against "verbose" languages that require typing a bunch of boilerplate. If typing the code is the bit that takes the longest for you in a project, stop and take a good look in the mirror. There's something else wrong in the process.

patrickthebold 4y ago
For a verbose language the problem isn't the typing it's the reading. On the typing side I agree with you: I don't mind spending 30 minutes typing a bunch of boilerplate. I do mind digging through 100s of lines of code to find the 2 lines that actually do something interesting. Of course, copilot is only going to save you typing time, and you'll have to pay it back at reading time.
- eat_lemons 4y ago
  I spend 95% of my day reading existing code not writing it, I have no idea what these developers writing code all day work on
int_19h 4y ago
"verbose" and "expressive" are on two different axes. Go is neither verbose nor expressive, for example, while XQuery is both verbose and expressive.
PartiallyTyped 4y ago
People write languages at higher levels of abstraction not to type fewer characters but to reduce logical errors that can occur, and provide better abstractions over things. An example here is an infinite list. It's far easier to do that in say Haskell and python, applying filters along the way using higher order and curried functions than it is to do it in say C.
- theshrike79 4y ago
  There is a difference between higher levels of abstraction and having a separate symbol for every single operation imaginable just for the sake of "expressiveness". Yes, you can shove a 20 line function into one line with a ton of weird symbols, but the one reading it after you will need to unroll it anyway to understand it so what's the point?

kromem 4y ago

I code for a living and have done so for over a decade now, and I completely agree with their analysis. Does it save you $10 worth of your time within a month? Comments here are wildly uninformed. I see comments complaining about copyright that seem to have no awareness of either fair use doctrine prior law as it relates to partial usage nor the details regarding how infrequently Copilot generates identifiable verbatim results outside attempts to auto fill empty files in empty projects (which seems outside typical usage). Or complaints that it makes mistakes, as if 90% of those mistakes aren't immediately flagged by the linter. Not only that, but I've found that often when it does make mistakes, it reflects a consistency smell in my own code, such as tripping up on a legacy naming convention that should really be refactored out. If it doesn't save you $10 worth of time, obviously don't use it. Personally I was worried it was going to be more given the ways in which it cuts down on the most boring parts of a high value profession. But insinuating that someone's positive experience of the tool reflects inexperience is a weird gatekeeper flex, and honestly I'm more inclined to think that all the curmudgeonly resistance I see in here to the inevitable march of progress instead reflects old dogs unable to adequately learn new tricks (like how to effectively prompt it).

eat_lemons 4y ago
Counterpoint look at the bios lawsuits that IBM won against people who had just seen IBM's code Or the windows xp leak and how that is a mess for wine/proton/reactos devs There is no concept of fair use in code copyright Copilot is 100% a ask for forgiveness later sort of project
matsemann 4y ago
It wasn't an attempt at insinuating anything in general, it was just an observation based on the parent comment's own admission. Please remember this from the guidelines > Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
- DantesKite 4y ago
  > It wasn't an attempt at insinuating anything in general, it was just an observation based on the parent comment's own admission. I don't think that's true. When the parent comment made that observation, they attached the caveat they might not be as skilled as others. They were already fully aware their potential lack of skill might affect their opinion of the product. All you did was repeat that same claim back to them, as if they weren't already aware of it which is a pretty uncharitable interpretation. A steelman interpretation that you could've said would assume there are some low-hanging fruit new or inexperienced developers would benefit from greatly (not just typing as you suggest), but once you develop a certain level of skill, Copilot would become less useful for experts such as yourself. If anything, you didn't respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what was said, since you willfully disregarded their own insight into the problem. Then to try and morally lecture someone on their behavior by applying a rule you don't even hold yourself standard to is pretty astonishing.

anaganisk 4y ago

When U say verify isn’t it just like 1 or 2 statement per completion? I’ve never seen it suggest more than that, a glance over the logic it completes with is lot more faster than typing it out in my experience. I spend more time thinking these days, than typing.