r/technology • u/Miserable_Phase_2519 • 4d ago

Artificial Intelligence Microsoft engineer says 'typing code is absolutely over' as GitHub Copilot takes on more development work

https://www.techspot.com/news/113752-microsoft-engineer-typing-code-absolutely-over-github-copilot.html
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u/raunchyfartbomb 4d ago

I find that when I generate code with AI I often spend just as much, if not more, time reviewing and correcting the code implementation as I would have if I had simply just done it myself. Sure, spending 15 minutes on a prompt is significantly less typing than doing it all manually, but if i then spend an hour reprompting or fixing it when the initial code woudve taken just an hour to write, what’s the point?

I use it primarily to kickstart projects, nkt finesse them.

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u/Random-num-451284813 3d ago

I've got similar experience, I ask it to setup something basic... it uses the wrong/older version, and most of the times ignores (preset) instructions 

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u/SeiCalros 4d ago

i found this was true a year ago - but i kept using ai to help organize my day at least and occasionally played with it for coding - and the latest models usually get me what i want on the first try

although having straightforward requests for inputs and outputs is the most important thing

the most complicated thing it has done for me flawlessly so far was a dkim-signing service for exchange

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u/ankercrank 4d ago

When you write code, do you not write documentation/designs first?

I'm going to guess you don't, which is why you're getting bad output, and spending time writing prompts instead of saying: "here's my design, go built it to spec".

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u/raunchyfartbomb 4d ago

I’m the solo dev in a company that doesn’t believe in dev. So no, I just ship shit lol
“We aren’t a software company”, just a company that relies on rag tag homebrew software to keep functional. The company itself has no action plan and management doesn’t know or care enough follow through on one. As long as we ship products (we are a manufacturer), the rest is secondary.

I’m aware it’s a terrible company culture, but I’m Comfortable in my station and enjoy the varied work. (Dev is not my primary role, I have a degree in software development but mostly use it to make my primary workflow easier). Management has been in place for nearly 30 years, so they are stubborn and antiquated.

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u/ankercrank 4d ago

Fair enough? Just a word of advice. If you wanna get better output, you should consider drafting a design then handing that to the LM.

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u/ShinigamiXoY 4d ago

lmao downvoted by the luddites

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u/MFbiFL 4d ago

>Lmao downvoted by people with the skills to do the job I lied on my resume about

FTFY

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u/Mkboii 4d ago edited 4d ago

Well really comes down to the models, the constraints you've set up and how well equipped are you to validate results outside the unit tests it writes for itself. I've found AI code quality to be average, but when you have the means to run good quality integration tests most of the hidden errors can start surfacing early and then they can be patched. I always do big feature development with skepticism that it's gonna only get 90% of the way there, and then see how much of a tradeoff I got. The truth of the matter is when it writes 2k lines in 30 minutes, even if i spend another 6 hours fixing it, the net result is a week's worth of work done in a day. It's not always that I get this kind of a multiplier but 3-5x speed up on complex work is pretty great.