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Re:Copilot regurgitating Quake code, including sweary comments by mimixco on Friday July 02, 2021 @09:35AM (#27711327)
I've been in the business a long time and I just don't believe in generalized AI at all. Writing code requires general (not artificial) intelligence. All of these "code helping" tools break down quickly because they may be searching for and finding relevant code blocks (the "imperative hell" referred to by another commenter), but they don't understand the context or the overall behavior and goals of the program.

Writing to overall goals and debugging actual behavior are the real work of programmers. Coming up with syntax or algorithms are 3rd and 4th on the priority list because, lets face it, it's not that hard to find a reference for correct syntax or the overall recipe implied by an algorithm. Once you understand those, you can write the correct code for your project.

I do think Copilot has potential as a search engine and reference tool -- if it can be presented that way. But the idea of a computer actually coming up with the right code in the full context of the program seems like fantasy.

Re:Copilot regurgitating Quake code, including sweary comments by gpm on Friday July 02, 2021 @10:12AM (#27711763)
If we're coming up with potential uses, I think they got the direction wrong.

Don't tell me what to do, tell me what not to do. "this line doesn't look like something that belongs in a code base", "this looks like a line of code that will be changed before the PR is merged". Etc.

Re:Copilot regurgitating Quake code, including sweary comments by mimixco on Friday July 02, 2021 @12:30PM (#27713660)
That would be fantastic! Imagine if it could catch common errors before you make them. So many things in loops and tests that we mess up all the time. My favorite is to confuse iterating through an array vs an object in JS. I'd love to have Gazoo step in and say, "Don't you mean, this, David?"