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My immediate instinct was to agree with you whole-heartedly. Then I remembered that Copilot has an "Explain this" button that I never click. Maybe this is beca

My immediate instinct was to agree with you whole-heartedly. Then I remembered that Copilot has an "Explain this" button that I never click. Maybe this is because I'm just not used to it, maybe the workflow isn't good enough, or maybe it's because I don't trust the model enough to summarize things correctly. I do agree that this is an area that could use improvement and I see a lot of utility there.

siscia 2y ago
My issue is not explaining how the code work. My issue is understanding why the code exists at all. The default workflow is to follow the commit history until I don't get to where and when the code in it's current shape was introduced. Then trying reading the commit message that generally link to a ticket and then acquire from tribal knowledge of the team why it was done like that. If it is still necessary, what can we do today instead, etc... And similarly when designing new code that needs to integrate on existing piece of code... Why there are such constraints in place? Why was it done like that? Who in the team know best?
- candiddevmike 2y ago
  I get the frustration with this workflow too. This is where having all of your issues in Git would be great, but alas no one wants to collaborate in ticket comments via Git commits... Inevitably the issue tracker gets moved/replaced/deprecated, and so all of that context disappear into the void. The code however is eternal.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 2y ago
  AI could help with this. It could pull the version history for a chunk of code you have highlighted, pull up the related tickets, sift through them, and then try to summarize from commit messages and comments on the ticket why this was added. What I could have used the other day was "find the commit where this variable became unused". I wanted to know if the line that used it was intentionally deleted or if it got lost in a refactor. I eventually found it but I had to click through dozens of commits to find the right one.
golergka 2y ago
This is great feature, but targeted mostly at junior developers who don't yet understand how particular library or framework work. But when I read the code, I spend most of my effort trying to understand what did original developer meant by this, and LLMs are not yet very helpful in that regard.
- siscia 2y ago
  I was trying to express exactly what you say! Sorry if it wasn't clear. Not only the intention, but also the reason behind it.
- Cu3PO42 2y ago
  I partially agree with you: not knowing what particular functions etc. do is one use case, another for me would be to detangle complicated control flow. Even if I can reason about each line individually, sometimes code is just complicated and maintains invariants that are never specified anywhere. Some of that can come down to "what were the constraints at the time and what did we agree on", but sometimes it's just complicated even if it doesn't have to be. The latter is something I would love for a LLM to simplify, but I just don't trust it to do that consistently correct.

siscia 2y ago

My issue is not explaining how the code work. My issue is understanding why the code exists at all. The default workflow is to follow the commit history until I don't get to where and when the code in it's current shape was introduced. Then trying reading the commit message that generally link to a ticket and then acquire from tribal knowledge of the team why it was done like that. If it is still necessary, what can we do today instead, etc... And similarly when designing new code that needs to integrate on existing piece of code... Why there are such constraints in place? Why was it done like that? Who in the team know best?

candiddevmike 2y ago
I get the frustration with this workflow too. This is where having all of your issues in Git would be great, but alas no one wants to collaborate in ticket comments via Git commits... Inevitably the issue tracker gets moved/replaced/deprecated, and so all of that context disappear into the void. The code however is eternal.
8n4vidtmkvmk 2y ago
AI could help with this. It could pull the version history for a chunk of code you have highlighted, pull up the related tickets, sift through them, and then try to summarize from commit messages and comments on the ticket why this was added. What I could have used the other day was "find the commit where this variable became unused". I wanted to know if the line that used it was intentionally deleted or if it got lost in a refactor. I eventually found it but I had to click through dozens of commits to find the right one.

golergka 2y ago

This is great feature, but targeted mostly at junior developers who don't yet understand how particular library or framework work. But when I read the code, I spend most of my effort trying to understand what did original developer meant by this, and LLMs are not yet very helpful in that regard.

siscia 2y ago
I was trying to express exactly what you say! Sorry if it wasn't clear. Not only the intention, but also the reason behind it.
Cu3PO42 2y ago
I partially agree with you: not knowing what particular functions etc. do is one use case, another for me would be to detangle complicated control flow. Even if I can reason about each line individually, sometimes code is just complicated and maintains invariants that are never specified anywhere. Some of that can come down to "what were the constraints at the time and what did we agree on", but sometimes it's just complicated even if it doesn't have to be. The latter is something I would love for a LLM to simplify, but I just don't trust it to do that consistently correct.