More likely: "inscrutably buggy"

It looks to you like it should work, but it doesn't, and you can't figure out why.

That's not "mostly working," that's a frustrating waste of time. It's hard enough to notice when you accidentally swap `i` and `j` -- why would you want to make your life even more miserable by spending your time finding all of the instances where a pattern matching robot has done something similar in an unfamiliar block?

And if you do happen to get "mostly working" code, but only want it to stay together long enough for you to fundraise, you're basically stating that you plan on foisting this technical debt onto the poor sod you happen to hire.

Attitudes like yours are the reason this dogpile scares me.

If I understand your argument correctly, it's that GitHub Copilot does not produce functioning code, yes?

If that's the case, I agree with your assessment, that GitHub Copilot isn't delivering on its promise and I would not be using it.

My understanding, however, was the GitHub Copilot does produce functioning code. If you're saying, as I think you are, "No, GitHub is lying about Copilot." I find that claim fascinating (How the hell did we get to the point where a software company could release a product that literally does not do even the most basic version of what it says it does, and only a few people notice?), but I'd need more specific information from you before I'd believe it.

You must not be coding anything important.

Ouch, but I'm not interesting in writing software as much as I'm interested in making enough money to spend the rest of my days sipping piña coladas on a beach in a foreign country.

All I really need is for the product to work well enough that I can fundraise and hire someone who's better at programming than I am, someone who hopefully doesn't write comments about how unimportant other people's work is on HN.

OK, that's fair enough, you're not interested in the engineering side of things – but then expect blowback if you decide to comment on exactly that.

I am interested in the engineering side of things, for sure, but only insofar as their actual outcomes and justification as part of a value-add to a business.

GitHub Copilot, if it can create "mostly working" code, is a huge value-add to an early business trying to find product/market fit because it cuts down on the time it takes to prototype and generate early versions.

Not every piece of software has to work perfectly every time, and I don't think that's the standard to which we should hold any automated coding tool.