There aren’t that many free trials that manage to convert me into a paying customer, but GitHub Copilot is now one of the exceptions. I don’t think I’ve seen a programming add-on tool that’s been this useful or beloved by developers since…well, maybe ReSharper back during my time as a Microsoftie (2008 – 2011).
It’s pretty good — but far from perfect — at generating Python code I’m thinking of writing as I type it in, which has resulted in a speed boost for me. Between Copilot (which I’ve had for free for a bit) and Claude Sonnet (which I’ve been paying for), I’ve been enjoying the new assisted world that I’ve been coding in.
Your mileage will vary with the programming language you’re using and the sort of application you’re working on. If what you’re doing matches lots of examples in Copilot’s training set, you’ll get lots of good suggestions. However, if you’re coding in a more obscure programming language, or writing a kind of application for which there would’ve been few examples to add to Copilot’s training set, you’ll get fewer suggestions, and a good number of them will be wrong.
But for me, Copilot’s a very helpful programming tool that I’ve harnessed in order to do more. Pardon me while I go pull out Atypical Consulting LLC’s credit card…
