this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
287 points (97.0% liked)

Technology

59429 readers
2885 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Copilot isn't actually bad for developers, it's just that you need to be careful with it and recognize its limitations.

Is it me or is this a weird statement for what's supposed to be an exact science?

Imagine working in construction and using a level and you're told "it's not that it's a bad level, you just gotta be careful with it".

How much margin for error should we allow for getting our code right? Is it now acceptable if we only get 80% right?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

I use copilot a bit for my work - and I treat it like copy-paste from StackOverflow - sure that codeat look right, but you've gotta double check it and test it a few times before you commit and push.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

As a software developer I promise you that software development is very much not an exact science.

Programs are complex and there are so many different ways of achieving the same thing that all code has problems and gets a bit messy in places. You can test, but it's not easy to ensure that everything works the way it should.

The best code you're going to get will probably be in the space industry, but even that will have bugs. The best you can do is make the code robust even when bugs make things go wrong.

In many cases copilot will do just as well as a junior developer. It's very good at repetitive tasks and filling gaps in your existing code.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

It's more like you get some kind of weird construction multitool that promises to be a level, a drill, a hammer, and a dozen other things, and it turns out to be a really good, innovative, and helpful level... and a really bad everything else.