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
For me APIs are actually one of the places it performs the worst. Copilot is like having an inexperienced yet annoyingly optimistic pair programmer. The code it generates appears conceivable in some hypothetical universe. No guarantee it's this one though.

Remember it doesn't actually know an API or how it should be used: it's putting things together to look like typical code. For me that has meant difficult to spot bugs like linking up incorrect variables from the rest of my code.

I wish it could integrate the first SO answer to a generated question, because I always end up there anyway having to fix things.