Re:Is GitHub Copilot a blessing, or a curse?
by ALittleLight on Wednesday July 21, 2021 @03:14AM
(#27903267)
I think the utility is similar to instant search on Google. I get very little by Google autocompleting the term I'm trying to type. I get quite a bit by Google suggesting things I didn't even know to search for.
The automatic SO search pane I was describing might give the same benefits. Most of the time maybe it would be useless. Sometimes it would show what I knew I wanted and save me the trivial effort of a search. The real gain would come from when it hit something that I should have asked but didn't think to. Then, I'd have a valuable insight I never would've had otherwise sitting in some pane ready for me.
Maybe it's just my imagination - but that's how I think it could be good.
Right but realize how much of a marginal gain we're fighting for here. You can already do this with a separate window and some extra clicking and typing. Saving a little clicking and typing isn't a huge win, unless you're also willing to argue the most valuable work a SWE does is the clicking and typing.
This whole thing feels ultimately like a PR spot that we're all tripping over ourselves to participate with. Its the SWE equivalent of getting all excited about how self-driving is just around the corner TM. It's a premature waste of energy until real advancements are made.