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Re:Kite is saying farewell, and is open-sourcing all of its ... by lolinder on Sunday November 20, 2022 @05:54PM (#33686402)
> Just the time saved writing tests alone pays for it.

This, so much. My code since using Copilot is easily ten times better tested than it was before, and I wasn't especially lazy when it comes to testing.

Given 1-2 hand-written unit tests, Copilot can start filling in test bodies that correctly test what's described in the function name. When I can't think of any more edge cases, I'll go prompt it with one more @Test annotation (or equivalent in another language) and it will frequently come up with edge cases that I didn't even think of and write a test that tests that edge case.

(One great part about this use case for those who are a little antsy about the copyright question is that you can be pretty darn confident that you're not running a risk of accidental copyright violation. I write the actual business logic by hand, which means copilot is generating tests that only interact with an API that I wrote.)

Re:Kite is saying farewell, and is open-sourcing all of its ... by Sn0wCoder on Sunday November 20, 2022 @07:14PM (#33687065)
Super interested in how to prompt copilot for testing. I pay for it myself as high paid developer and love the boilerplate autocomplete. Just joined a new team and my lead is a good person, but rookie TS dev (as is the whole team). They are forcing me to adapt their coding style and copilot seems to see the code in the repo and emulate it. Saves me so much time and just got a 30% pay raise to join this team so if they want it wrong copilot helps me code it wrong. Also does it correctly when in my own repos so best of both worlds. If someone writes up a blog about copilot and testing would be super appreciated. Long story short I joined the team at the end of the release and NO unit tests and no linting. I turned on the linter with a git hook to only lint the files staged for checkin. Got some pushback but eventually made it though code review. After the release they want me to write all the unit/integration tests and I am already planning to automate most of it, but any advice / suggestions are welcomed. Before anyone says leave the company not an option! Just signed 2 year commitment and I am a person of my word. Plus I like my team just not the code base. If anyone is in a similar boat and wants to collaborate on a solution please leave a comment here. I will update my HN profile with a burner email that you can contact me for my real email. Or I can contact you though your profile. Once it’s done might have a product who knows…. Hopefully no one from my team sees this post cause I am going to tell them they are all hand coded and working my ass off.
Re:Kite is saying farewell, and is open-sourcing all of its ... by madsbuch on Monday November 21, 2022 @06:52AM (#33691557)
APIs are not copyrightable (Oracle vs Google). However, the code that interacts with an API might be.

Regardless, it is interesting to think about what domains are easier to generate effective models for. I would expect it to be easier to generate a supervised model <test description> => <test code>. My intuition is also, that it is easier to generate React component code, and harder to generate feature code.

Re:Kite is saying farewell, and is open-sourcing all of its ... by qw3rty01 on Tuesday November 22, 2022 @01:07AM (#33702594)
Unfortunately that ruling was overturned and APIs were found to be copyrightable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_...
Re:Kite is saying farewell, and is open-sourcing all of its ... by UncleEntity on Tuesday November 22, 2022 @03:11PM (#33710771)
Which was later overturned by the Supreme Court if you read farther down the article you posted the link for.

And was all over the tech news at the time.

I kind of suspect you are intentionally trolling…

Re:Kite is saying farewell, and is open-sourcing all of its ... by qw3rty01 on Tuesday November 22, 2022 @07:15PM (#33713379)
Incorrect, the case was appealed to the supreme court and the appeal was denied, so the lower court ruling held.

What was ruled by the supreme court was that Google's usage of the API (which had already determined to be copyrighted) fell under fair use in copyright law.

Re:Kite is saying farewell, and is open-sourcing all of its ... by dragonwriter on Tuesday November 22, 2022 @07:26PM (#33713474)
> Incorrect, the case was appealed to the supreme court and the appeal was denied, so the lower court ruling held.

Kind of; the appeal denied was an interlocutory appeal (an appeal before final judgement), so the lower court ruling was left in place until final resolution of the case potentially to be settled in any final appeal.

However, while copyrightability of APIs was raised on the final appeal, the Supreme Court sidestepped it, ruling that because Google’s use was fair use even if the API was copyrightable, it was unnecessary to decide the copyrightability question at all. So the Federal Circuit decision remains in place on copyrightability.

On the gripping hand, though, that decision really doesn't matter much because Federal Circuit decisions on issues outside of those it has unique appellate responsibility aren’t binding precedent on trial courts (it is supposed to apply the case law of the geographic circuit that would otherwise apply, but its rulings don’t have the precedential effect that rulings of that circuit would have.)

So, basically, as far as appellate case law, Oracle v. Google provides no binding precedent on copyrightability of APIs, but precedent that at least one pattern of API copying is fair use if APIs are copyrightable.

Which isn’t encouraging for anyone looking to protect an API with copyrights.

Re:Kite is saying farewell, and is open-sourcing all of its ... by matkoniecz on Monday November 21, 2022 @07:45AM (#33691914)
> which means copilot is generating tests that only interact with an API that I wrote

It bases this generated test cases on other similar test cases in other software, including GPL licensed

Re:Kite is saying farewell, and is open-sourcing all of its ... by UncleEntity on Tuesday November 22, 2022 @03:13PM (#33710814)
Which doesn’t matter unless you are distributing said test cases.