Code analysis firm sees no major benefits from AI dev tool when measuring key programming metrics, though others report incremental gains from coding copilots with emphasis on code review.

“Many developers say AI coding assistants make them more productive, but a recent study set forth to measure their output and found no significant gains. Use of GitHub Copilot also introduced 41% more bugs, according to the study from Uplevel”

study referenced: Can GenAI Actually Improve Developer Productivity? (requires email)

  • @[email protected]
    7•2 days ago

    It’s really good at boilerplate. Saves a lot of time on repetitive tasks. I’ve found it particularly useful for unit tests and demo pages. Things where you write one variation and it automatically generates the others for you.

    Another instance where it was useful for me was when I needed to make a small change in another team’s repo. I knew exactly what I needed to do, but I wasn’t familiar with the language. Copilot helped with getting the correct syntax.

    • @hex
      1•13 hours ago

      Based take. Totally agree. Have faced both sides, where it helps with silly errors on new languages, and where it is absolutely incapable of debugging a slightly more complex issue. It’s useful, but only for certain tasks.