What do you think about AI coding assistants ?

Question

Interesting paper by Perry et al. from Stanford Computer Security Lab. The study revealed that AI Code assistants generate security flaws and less secure systems. Ironically, engineers using Code assistants are more likely to believe they wrote secure code:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2211.03622.pdf

Accepted Answer

It is still up to you to analyze the results it generates. To me, github copilot is a great tool for backend developers but not for mobile app developers.

SaaS Yeti · Answer

@make_mhe JS frameworks (Next / React / Vanilla JS) and it even auto completes CSS and HTML.

I do use it for production projects :)

SaaS Yeti · Answer

Personally, I love GitHub co-pilot.

It helps a lot with repetitive objects and JSON, and it helps me write code much faster.

However, I don't think you should touch it if you are new to coding. It does spout stuff that is irrelevant, inefficient, or simply erroneous. You still need to understand what it spits out and evaluate it.

Mohcine Heddi · Answer

@saas_yeti what kind of scripts/program did you use co-pilot for ? is it for production use or just testing ?

Mohcine Heddi · Answer

@saas_yeti Got it! thanks for sharing :)

Hyunseok Lee · Answer

@make_mhe Yeap :)

Hyunseok Lee · Answer

I think github copilot is useful for backend developer, but not for mobile application developer.

Mohcine Heddi · Answer

@betty_williamsy Sure thing in theory but i would advice to always double check

Answer

These are time savers

Mohcine Heddi · Answer

@hyunseok_lee thanks for your feedback, are you a mobile app dev ?

Mohcine Heddi · Answer

@cassy_tristram totally agreed that u meed to analyze the results. why do you say that it s not great for mobile app devs, did u try it ?

What do you think about AI coding assistants ?

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