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Biggest advantage I found when I evaluated it was the API was much more consistent and understandable than the pandas one. Which is probably a given, they’ve le

Biggest advantage I found when I evaluated it was the API was much more consistent and understandable than the pandas one. Which is probably a given, they’ve learned from watching 20 major versions of pandas get released. However, since it’s much rarer, copilot had trouble writing polars code. So I’m sticking with pandas and copilot for now. Interesting barrier to new libraries in general I hadn’t noticed until I tried this.

humbleharbinger 3y ago
I had a similar experience using danfo.js, another data frame library in js. Copilot straight up hallucinate functionality and method names. Not a big deal because I just read the docs but it was annoying that I couldn't have copilot just spit out what I need.
- im_down_w_otp 3y ago
  This is really interesting to see these two posts. I can now imagine where AI tools actually inhibit innovation in many domains simply because they’re optimized for things that are already entrenched and new entrants won’t be in the training data. Further inhibiting adoption compared to existing things and thus further inhibiting enough growth to make it into model updates.
  - xpe 3y ago
    It is a healthy mindset to see this phenomenon as "interesting". I can get there when I dial up my mindfulness, but my default mode here is rather judgy; as in "please ppl! pick the better tool as evaluated over a 4+ hour timeframe (after you've got some muscle memory for the API) instead of a 15 minute evaluation". Forgive me for ranting here, but have people forgotten how to bootstrap their own knowledge about a new library? Taking notes isn't hard. Making a personal cheat-sheet isn't hard. I say all this AND I use LLMs very frequently to help with technical work. But I'm mindful about the tradeoffs. I will not let the tool steer me down a path that isn't suitable. I'm actually hopeful: there is an unexpected competitive advantage to people who are willing to embrace a little discomfort and take advantage of one's neuroplasticity.
  - fpgaminer 3y ago
    How is that different from humans who prefer tools they know to tools they don't?
    - FridgeSeal 3y ago
      Because it’s like willfully choosing the more painful and difficult tool that occasionally stabs you in the hand, because you’re now used to being stabbed in the hand. Continuing to choose it in the face of - in their own words - a better option, is a bit mind-boggling to me.
  - mncharity 3y ago
    > I can now imagine where AI tools actually inhibit innovation [...] new entrants won’t be in the training data I still imagine the opposite impact... Welcome to no-moats-lang.io! So, you've created yet another new programming language over the holidays? You have a sandbox and LSP server up, and are wondering what to do next? Our open-source LLMs are easily tuned for your wonderful language! They will help you rapidly create excellent documentation, translators from related popular languages, do bulk translation of "batteries" so your soon-to-be-hordes of users can be quickly productive, and create both server and on-prem ChatOverflowPilotBots! Instant support for new language versions, and automatic code update! "LLM's are dynamite for barriers to entry!" - Some LLM Somewhere Probably. Once upon a time, a tar file with a compiler was MVP for a language. But with little hope of broad adoption. And year by year, user minimum expectations have grown dauntingly - towards extensive infrastructure, docs, code, community. Now even FAMG struggle to support "Help me do common-thing in current-version?". Looking ahead, not only do LLMs seemingly help drop the cost of those current expectations to something a tiny team might manage, but also help drop some of the historical barriers to rapid broad adoption - "Waiting for the datascience and webdev books? ... Week after next." We might finally be escaping decades of language evolution ecosystem dysfunction... just as programming might be moving on from them? :/
epolanski 3y ago
You're the first person I ever encounter that publicly states to prefer a library because of its copilot support. Not making a judgement, just finding it interesting. Anyway, for what is worth, Copilot learns fast in your repos, very fast. I use an extremely custom stack made of TS-Plus a TypeScript fork that not even the author itself uses nor recommends and Copilot churns very good TS-Plus code. So don't underestimate how good can copilot can get at the boilerplate stage once he's seen few examples.
- digdugdirk 3y ago
  Umm... Could you please link to a resource so someone can parse what your last two paragraphs mean? That sounds really interesting and valuable, I just have no idea where to start.
  - bko 3y ago
    I think he means he uses an obscure programming language and co-pilot still gives him functioning code if he gives a few examples. Not sure if copilot is very context aware where you can feed it an entire code-base, but maybe you can point GPT to read the documentation
  - Tigress8780 3y ago
    Given examples, Copilot can generate code for extremely rare languages or data structures. For example, it worked fine when I was writing for an obscure scripting language found in a railway simulation game.
    - swyx 3y ago
      to further elaborate, Copilot automatically grabs most recent 20 files with same extension to get code examples. you dont have to do anything special to make this happen. it just improves quietly over time.
      - dwaltrip 3y ago
        Is there documentation or any articles about this? I would love to learn more.
xpe 3y ago
You recognize the API is more consistent and understandable, but you want to stay with Pandas only because Copilot makes it easier? Please, (a) for your own sake and (b) for the sake of open source innovation, use the tool that you admit is better. About me: I've used and disliked the Pandas API for a long time. I'm very proactive about continual improvement in my learning, tooling, mindset, and skills.
- chemicalnovae 3y ago
  > Please, (a) for your own sake and (b) for the sake of open source innovation, use the tool that you admit is better. This is...such a strange take. To follow your logic to an extreme, everyone should use a very small handful of languages that are the "best" in their domain with ne'er a care for their personal comfort or preference. > for your own sake They're sticking with Pandas exactly for their own sake since they like being able to use Copilot. > for the sake of open source innovation Ohh by all means let's all be constantly relearning and rehashing just to follow the latest and greatest in open source innovation this week. Tools are designed to be _used_ and if you like using a tool _and_ it does the job you require of it that seems just fine to me; especially if you're also taking the time to evaluate what else is out there occasionally.
  - earthling8118 3y ago
    Is it really that strange of a take? To use the best tool available for a job. That doesn't sound strange at all. Doubly so if it involves copilot. There's no way to get training data without people writing it. This sound like a direct application of a greedy algorithm: trading long term success for short term gain. That's not the ideal way to live.
    - xpe 3y ago
      Yes, the greedy algorithm metaphor is an interesting connection! I also like thinking about this as a feedback loop (as explained by systems dynamics), since it provides nice concepts for how systems change over time.
  - 3y ago
__mharrison__ 3y ago
Copilot support is basically non existent for Polars. It does a decent job of writing basic pandas... (But could do a lot better).
bradhilton 3y ago
I use polars, but I've also run into this problem with copilot.
BadHumans 3y ago
Copilot support is a chicken and egg problem. It needs to train on others code but if people don't write Polars code without Copilot then Copilot will not get better at writing Polars code.
naiv 3y ago
The Polars lib changes rapidly. I am not using Copilot but achieved very good results with ChatGpt if you set system instructions to let it know that eg with_column was replaced with with_columns etc. and add the updated doc information to the system instructions.

humbleharbinger 3y ago

I had a similar experience using danfo.js, another data frame library in js. Copilot straight up hallucinate functionality and method names. Not a big deal because I just read the docs but it was annoying that I couldn't have copilot just spit out what I need.

im_down_w_otp 3y ago
This is really interesting to see these two posts. I can now imagine where AI tools actually inhibit innovation in many domains simply because they’re optimized for things that are already entrenched and new entrants won’t be in the training data. Further inhibiting adoption compared to existing things and thus further inhibiting enough growth to make it into model updates.
- xpe 3y ago
  It is a healthy mindset to see this phenomenon as "interesting". I can get there when I dial up my mindfulness, but my default mode here is rather judgy; as in "please ppl! pick the better tool as evaluated over a 4+ hour timeframe (after you've got some muscle memory for the API) instead of a 15 minute evaluation". Forgive me for ranting here, but have people forgotten how to bootstrap their own knowledge about a new library? Taking notes isn't hard. Making a personal cheat-sheet isn't hard. I say all this AND I use LLMs very frequently to help with technical work. But I'm mindful about the tradeoffs. I will not let the tool steer me down a path that isn't suitable. I'm actually hopeful: there is an unexpected competitive advantage to people who are willing to embrace a little discomfort and take advantage of one's neuroplasticity.
- fpgaminer 3y ago
  How is that different from humans who prefer tools they know to tools they don't?
  - FridgeSeal 3y ago
    Because it’s like willfully choosing the more painful and difficult tool that occasionally stabs you in the hand, because you’re now used to being stabbed in the hand. Continuing to choose it in the face of - in their own words - a better option, is a bit mind-boggling to me.
- mncharity 3y ago
  > I can now imagine where AI tools actually inhibit innovation [...] new entrants won’t be in the training data I still imagine the opposite impact... Welcome to no-moats-lang.io! So, you've created yet another new programming language over the holidays? You have a sandbox and LSP server up, and are wondering what to do next? Our open-source LLMs are easily tuned for your wonderful language! They will help you rapidly create excellent documentation, translators from related popular languages, do bulk translation of "batteries" so your soon-to-be-hordes of users can be quickly productive, and create both server and on-prem ChatOverflowPilotBots! Instant support for new language versions, and automatic code update! "LLM's are dynamite for barriers to entry!" - Some LLM Somewhere Probably. Once upon a time, a tar file with a compiler was MVP for a language. But with little hope of broad adoption. And year by year, user minimum expectations have grown dauntingly - towards extensive infrastructure, docs, code, community. Now even FAMG struggle to support "Help me do common-thing in current-version?". Looking ahead, not only do LLMs seemingly help drop the cost of those current expectations to something a tiny team might manage, but also help drop some of the historical barriers to rapid broad adoption - "Waiting for the datascience and webdev books? ... Week after next." We might finally be escaping decades of language evolution ecosystem dysfunction... just as programming might be moving on from them? :/

epolanski 3y ago

You're the first person I ever encounter that publicly states to prefer a library because of its copilot support. Not making a judgement, just finding it interesting. Anyway, for what is worth, Copilot learns fast in your repos, very fast. I use an extremely custom stack made of TS-Plus a TypeScript fork that not even the author itself uses nor recommends and Copilot churns very good TS-Plus code. So don't underestimate how good can copilot can get at the boilerplate stage once he's seen few examples.

digdugdirk 3y ago
Umm... Could you please link to a resource so someone can parse what your last two paragraphs mean? That sounds really interesting and valuable, I just have no idea where to start.
- bko 3y ago
  I think he means he uses an obscure programming language and co-pilot still gives him functioning code if he gives a few examples. Not sure if copilot is very context aware where you can feed it an entire code-base, but maybe you can point GPT to read the documentation
- Tigress8780 3y ago
  Given examples, Copilot can generate code for extremely rare languages or data structures. For example, it worked fine when I was writing for an obscure scripting language found in a railway simulation game.
  - swyx 3y ago
    to further elaborate, Copilot automatically grabs most recent 20 files with same extension to get code examples. you dont have to do anything special to make this happen. it just improves quietly over time.
    - dwaltrip 3y ago
      Is there documentation or any articles about this? I would love to learn more.

xpe 3y ago

You recognize the API is more consistent and understandable, but you want to stay with Pandas only because Copilot makes it easier? Please, (a) for your own sake and (b) for the sake of open source innovation, use the tool that you admit is better. About me: I've used and disliked the Pandas API for a long time. I'm very proactive about continual improvement in my learning, tooling, mindset, and skills.

chemicalnovae 3y ago
> Please, (a) for your own sake and (b) for the sake of open source innovation, use the tool that you admit is better. This is...such a strange take. To follow your logic to an extreme, everyone should use a very small handful of languages that are the "best" in their domain with ne'er a care for their personal comfort or preference. > for your own sake They're sticking with Pandas exactly for their own sake since they like being able to use Copilot. > for the sake of open source innovation Ohh by all means let's all be constantly relearning and rehashing just to follow the latest and greatest in open source innovation this week. Tools are designed to be _used_ and if you like using a tool _and_ it does the job you require of it that seems just fine to me; especially if you're also taking the time to evaluate what else is out there occasionally.
- earthling8118 3y ago
  Is it really that strange of a take? To use the best tool available for a job. That doesn't sound strange at all. Doubly so if it involves copilot. There's no way to get training data without people writing it. This sound like a direct application of a greedy algorithm: trading long term success for short term gain. That's not the ideal way to live.
  - xpe 3y ago
    Yes, the greedy algorithm metaphor is an interesting connection! I also like thinking about this as a feedback loop (as explained by systems dynamics), since it provides nice concepts for how systems change over time.
- 3y ago

__mharrison__ 3y ago

Copilot support is basically non existent for Polars. It does a decent job of writing basic pandas... (But could do a lot better).

bradhilton 3y ago

I use polars, but I've also run into this problem with copilot.

BadHumans 3y ago

Copilot support is a chicken and egg problem. It needs to train on others code but if people don't write Polars code without Copilot then Copilot will not get better at writing Polars code.

naiv 3y ago

The Polars lib changes rapidly. I am not using Copilot but achieved very good results with ChatGpt if you set system instructions to let it know that eg with_column was replaced with with_columns etc. and add the updated doc information to the system instructions.