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0 pointsbartread1y ago0 comments

I've been using (GitHub) Copilot and ChatGPT since they've been widely available. I started using ChatGPT for coding after 4 came out.

I was an early advocate for Copilot but, honestly, nowadays I really don't find it that useful, compared to GPT-4o via ChatGPT.

ChatGPT not being directly integrated into my editor turns out to be an advantage. The problem with Copilot is it gets in the way. It's too easy to unintentionally insert a line or block completion that isn't what you want, or is out and out garbage, and it's constantly shoving up suggestions as I type, which can be distracting. It's particularly irritating when I'm trying to read or understand a piece of code, or maybe do a refactor, and I leave my caret in one position for half a second too long, and suddenly it's ghost-inserted a block of code as a suggestion that's moved half of what I'm reading down the screen and now I have to find my place again.

Whereas, with ChatGPT being separate, it operates at a much less intrusive cadence, and only responds when I ask it too, which turns out to be much more useful and productive.

I'm seriously considering binning of my Copilot subscription as a result.

0 comments

coffeebeqn1y ago

Copilot was surprisingly one of the worst AI products I’ve used. It keeps suggesting nonsense and the insertions it does in VSCode often mess up very basic things like it starts writing things in the wrong place (or adds a function inside another function) and the result doesn’t even compile. It also seems to have zero understanding of the codebase apart from maybe a few lines before and after. Incredible that this is being sold as a real product at this point

protocolture1y ago

I canned my Copilot sub.

Even where microsoft includes it for free, like their automation tools, its always been jank. I found myself going to GPT4 for better answers which is bad when you spend any time thinking about it.

ed_mercer1y ago

Have you tried using the shortcut for turning copilot on/off? I know what you mean and in those cases I just turn it off for a second and type freely, then turn it back on.

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