zlacker

>>orph+(OP)
Copilot is crazy. The other day, I was writing a Python function that would call a Wikipedia API. I pulled from the internet an example of a GET request, and pasted it as a comment in my code.

  # sample call: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&format=json&list=geosearch&gscoord=37.7891838%7C-122.4033522&gsradius=10000&gslimit=100

Then I defined a variable,

  base_url = "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?"

Then, like magic, Copilot suggested all the remaining keys that would go in the query params. It even knew which params were to be kept as-is, and which ones would come from my previous code:

  action = "query"  # action=query
  format = "json"  # or xml
  lat = str(latitude.value)  # 37.7891838
  lon = str(longitude.value)  # -122.4033522
  gscoord = lat + "%7C" + lon
  ...
  api_path = base_url + "action=" + action + "&format=" + format + ... + "&gscoord=" + gscoord

As a guy who gets easily distracted while programming, Copilot saves me a lot of time and keeps me engaged with my work. I can only imagine what it'll look like 10 years from now.

>>pugets+Nr
Bit of a dodgy way to form query parameters though. Other than for a quick script.

>>c7DJTL+gy
How so?

>>relati+sB
It's much safer (i.e. fewer degrees of freedom for bugs to appear) to use f-strings in situations like this one.

One correlated but ancillary benefit, is that there are fewer variables to simulate the state for in your brain, while you're reading the code. You don't have to wonder if a variable is going to change on you, in-between when it is initialized and when it is used.

It's safer still to use a library (e.g. urllib3) that does encoding for you (allowing you to omit magic strings like `"%7C"` from the logic of this function alltogther).

Like GP said, very handy for one-off scripts or areas of your codebase where quality is "less important". I may be pedantic, but I wouldn't give this a pass on code review.