Is Copilot the future of code writing?
On June 29, Microsoft and OpenAI announced they were introducing GitHub Copilot, a tool that takes advantage of GitHub’s huge code repository to help developers by offering them pair programming, the classic pair development mode of agile methodologies, but in this case, using artificial intelligence, which auto-completes with suggestions lines of code or even entire functions within its editing tool.
Microsoft’s idea is to simplify the programming process, with the idea of keeping programmers who use the company’s tools loyal while attracting others. The system is based on the huge amount of source code that has been uploaded over the years to the code-sharing service GitHub, which Microsoft acquired in 2018, as well as on other websites. Microsoft and GitHub have developed Copilot with the help of OpenAI, an artificial intelligence research company already supported by Microsoft since 2019.
The idea of computers that can write their own code is not new, but until now they haven’t been very versatile, and programmers tended not to feel particularly comfortable with them. GitHub Copilot is…
