Gregory's ServerThat being said, I have some experience working with code submitted by less skilled programmers who blindly copy and paste stack exchange for a living, from before the prevalence of LLMs, and I am somewhat used to reviewing code of that standard. I find the longer LLM-built code is similar to review as that style of code, and in some cases is approaching that level of code quality.
I am tempted to try one of these “code your own mobile app” demo things, as it’s a platform I’m unfamiliar with, and I have some itches to scratch.
I believe both my coding style and my speed have been affected by using Copilot, both with modest boosts to productivity.
Could I work without Copilot? Absolutely! Would I want to? I think I’d miss the speed boost in a long python project
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One place where my colleagues (and to a lesser extent, myself) have found LLMs to be useful is in multilingual situations.
When English is not your first language, but your coding standard requires things to be programmed in English, sometimes you can struggle to use the correct name for a variable, especially when those words are false friends, or are concepts that aren’t one word in English. The LLM can make sensible suggestions for variable and function names and the like. I’ve had to do fewer refactorings of colleague’s work due to inappropriate name use since they started with Copilot.
Similarly, pasting a description in Spanish into one of these things and asking for an outline onto which to hang your code on in English has helped, with proper code review.
This stuff is not panacea, but it can help when applied with a healthy dose of scepticism. @kitten_tech’s OP conclusion is valid, as the benefits are still marginal.
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One place where my colleagues (and to a lesser extent, myself) have found LLMs to be useful is in multilingual situations.
When English is not your first language, but your coding standard requires things to be programmed in English, sometimes you can struggle to use the correct name for a variable, especially when those words are false friends, or are concepts that aren’t one word in English. The LLM can make sensible suggestions for variable and function names and the like. I’ve had to do fewer...