What are the pros and cons of using GitHub Copilot?

GitHub Copilot continues to soar to new heights in the two years since its launch. Over the years it has grown to over 1 million paid subscribers across over 37,000 organizations. This makes it the most widely adopted AI developer tool in history and it continues to redefine how developers code.

Let’s analyze the pros of GitHub copilot. It:

1. Suggests code as you type - You can view and incorporate suggestions from GitHub copilot directly within the browser. You can accept, partially accept, reject, or view alternative suggestions if there are any.

2. Answers coding questions - GitHub Copilot Chat can generate unit test cases, propose code fixes, answer coding questions, and explain your code. But don’t forget your due diligence. Always check and test your code.

3. Refactors and improves code - Copilot suggests refactoring using the context of your codebase and recommends potential improvements to selected code such as improved handling of errors and edge cases, or changes to the logical flow to make the code more readable.

4. Fixes issues - Copilot can suggest possible fixes based on the error message, the code’s syntax, and the surrounding code. Also, when a command fails to run in the terminal, Copilot offers a Quick Fix to explain what happened.

5. Generates commit messages and PR descriptions - Copilot uses AI to describe your code changes. This feature makes writing descriptive and helpful commit messages as easy as clicking a button.

Let’s see the cons of GitHub Copilot. The most evident disadvantage is that developers who heavily rely on Copilot risk being overdependent on automated suggestions. This is a problem, especially for beginners. Additionally, Copilot may generate inaccurate code that appears to be valid.

To mitigate inaccurate code, you should always review and test the code.

Developers must take a thoughtful approach to integrating this tool into their process. GitHub copilot is meant to increase productivity and accelerate the rate of software development, not replace the developer’s decision-making and critical thinking.