Software Freedom Conservancy: Give Up GitHub: The Time Has Come!

Posted Jul 2, 2022 23:51 UTC (Sat) by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
In reply to: Software Freedom Conservancy: Give Up GitHub: The Time Has Come! by bluca
Parent article: Software Freedom Conservancy: Give Up GitHub: The Time Has Come!

Whatever. The examples on their web site leave me underimpressed. E.g., the “IsPrimeTime.java” example takes a comment that reads

// Math.isPrime(int) returns whether the given number is prime or not
@Test

and completes that to

// Math.isPrime(int) returns whether the given number is prime or not
@Test
public void testIsPrime() {
  assertTrue(Math.isPrime(2));
  assertTrue(Math.isPrime(3));
  assertTrue(Math.isPrime(5));
  assertTrue(Math.isPrime(7));
  assertTrue(Math.isPrime(11));
  assertTrue(Math.isPrime(13));
  assertTrue(Math.isPrime(17));
  assertTrue(Math.isPrime(19));
  assertTrue(Math.isPrime(23));
  assertTrue(Math.isPrime(29));
}

which is obviously an impressive blob of code but fails completely at its stated purpose. If that is really the best Copilot can do, to a point where they feel they must put it out as an advertisement, then please explain to me again why I should want to pay for drivel like that.

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Software Freedom Conservancy: Give Up GitHub: The Time Has Come!

Posted Jul 3, 2022 10:47 UTC (Sun) by bluca (subscriber, #118303) [Link] (1 responses)

It's a fancy autocomplete tool, not a replacement for an engineer. I've been using it since the preview started, and it's incredibly good at saving time when dealing with boilerplate and other such repetitive chunks. It really excels when for example dealing with a library with a very verbose interface, or when adding yet another unit test to a file full of tests with some variations between them, or when a reusing the same pattern across a project. It doesn't conjure up creative new algorithms on its own, that's not it's job, it's the coder's. And of course you need to check what comes up, you don't blindly accept anything it throws at you, just like you do with ye olde autocomplete, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Software Freedom Conservancy: Give Up GitHub: The Time Has Come!

Posted Jul 3, 2022 15:45 UTC (Sun) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link]

If what Copilot does is worth $100/year to you (or your employer), then more power to you. From the examples on the web site – which I presume are showing Copilot at its best, because why else pick them as examples? –, I personally don't see that for me, and in any case my favourite editor is not among the ones Copilot supports, so getting to where I could actually use Copilot in the first place would be too much of a hassle as far as I'm concerned, so I think I'll pass.