Ask HN: How often do you use GitHub Copilot at work? If not, why not?

by kingkhalidon 11/2/2023, 12:40 PMwith 5 comments

by palataon 11/2/2023, 1:06 PM

I don't use it, I refuse to. To me, the most important thing is to write code I understand in a way that will be understood by other humans. Copilot is here to make me produce code faster, that's a different goal.

I do spend a lot of time reading about the functions I call (to make sure I understand what they are meant to do and how to use them) and then, once my code works, to make it more readable. I believe it is a skill that requires practice. Copilot removes that, and therefore prevents me from getting better at what I believe is important.

by flanflyon 11/2/2023, 1:35 PM

It's an integral part of my workflow now. I love it. My common use cases are

- generating doc comments that are 99% correct

- completing boilerplate like error handling (f- you golang)

- write a "quick start" skeleton for unknown libraries and frameworks

by andrewfromxon 11/2/2023, 1:00 PM

I copy past code blocks into chatgpt web interface but I remove any company specific stuff first. Like I'll even change variable names to "foo" vs. using the very MyCompanyNameVar in the example code.