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I wonder if we can use "copilot-ability" as a proxy for code base complexity. In other words, if copilot can't help you write code, then could that mean your c
by mucle6 2y ago
I wonder if we can use "copilot-ability" as a proxy for code base complexity.
In other words, if copilot can't help you write code, then could that mean your code base is too complicated for a beginner to understand and modify?
- chasd00 2y agoI hope not but i bet you're right. I'm sure there's lots of people working on llms to generate a "cognitive complexity" score like some of the static code analyzers we have. It will be so ripe with false positives as to be effectively worthless however the score is an easy thing to build a metric, report, and policy on... just like with the analyzers today.
- layer8 2y agoThat assumes that it would be reasonable to expect a beginner to understand the code base of any nontrivial application or system. I don’t think that’s a reasonable expectation, if only because there are countless requirements, assumptions, experiences made, priorities and design decision that have to be known to understand the code. It’s also a question of economy. You can always try to make a code base easier to understand and to document anything and everything, but it comes at a cost. It doesn’t help if a code base is in principle understandable by a beginner if they have to spend months reading documentation first, and someone had to spend months if not years to write it.