I use VS Code and GitHub Co-pilot and develop in a variety of different languages and frameworks. I’ve got lots of experience with some, but I’m less knowledgeable on others.

So, having the AI assist with languages I am very familiar with is basically a way to save time and preserve my mental energy. For languages and frameworks I’m less experienced with, it speeds things up because I’m not having to constantly search how-tos and forums for guidance. And for languages/frameworks I have limited or no experience with, it can be a helpful learning tool that speeds up how long it takes to get ramped up.

With this set-up, if I start writing a line of code and then pause for a moment, co-pilot kicks in and tries to autocomplete that line, sometimes even suggests the entire block of code. It’s really good at recognizing simple patterns and common boilerplate stuff. It’s less good at figuring out more complex stuff, though.

However, I find that if I start out by writing a comment that explains what I’m trying to accomplish, and to some degree how to accomplish it before I start writing one of those more complex blocks/lines, the AI has a much higher success rate in returning helpful, functioning code. So, basically yes, I write the comment to describe code I haven’t written, and I’ll let the AI take over from there.

This works for code, raw database queries, configuration files, and even for writing tests. I’m not an expert at building out Docker configurations for local development or configuring auto-deployment on whatever random system is being used for a project, but I can often get those things up and running just by describing in comments what I need and what I’m trying to accomplish.

The VS Code co-pilot extension also has some context menu items that let you ask questions and/or ask for suggestions, which comes in handy for some things, but for me, typing out my intentions in comments and then letting the auto-complete kick in as I’m starting a line of code is faster, more efficient, and seems to work better.

Granted, co-pilot also likes to try to auto-complete comments, so that’s sometimes funny just to read what it “thinks” I’m trying to do. And most of the time, I do remove my comments that were specifically to guide co-pilot on what I wanted it to do if they’re super redundant. And, at the end of the day, not everything co-pilot suggests is production-worthy, functional, nor does what I actually described. In fact, a lot of it is not, so you should expect to go back and fine tune things at a minimum. It’s just that overall, it’s good enough that even with all the supervision and revisions I have to make, it’s still a net positive, for now.

I know some folks are joking about and dunking on this, but in modern times, I have justification. Call me lazy, but I have found myself writing out these comments and then letting the AI take over to at least give me a sketch of an implementation. Works reasonably well and saves me a lot of time and effort. Mostly I don’t bother to remove them, though I usually edit them a bit.

On the other hand, there are factions within my colleagues who steadfastly insist that commenting is unnecessary and to some degree even potentially harmful, and that if you feel the need to comment your code, it means your code should be improved so that it’s obvious what it is doing without the need for comments.

I definitely miss the cached pages. I found that I was using the feature very frequently. Maybe it’s just the relative obscurity of some of my hobbies and interests, but a lot of the information online that shows up in search engines seems to come from old forums. Often times those old forums are no longer around or have migrated to new software (obliterating the old URLs and old posts as well).

My credit card offers virtual credit card numbers AND the ability to auto-lock the virtual numbers so you can set a date and after that the number will not accept new charges.

I make sure to use a virtual card number for everything subscription based, then I immediately set the auto-lock feature to expire in a few days (give the initial charge time to clear but still plenty of time before the subscription would otherwise renew).

Some subscription services make it super tough to cancel. This method fixes that issue for the most part. Some subscription services terminate immediately once you cancel the subscription, even if you still have “time left” otherwise. This way you don’t really have to formally unsubscribe. It’s easy peasy pumpkin breezy as the common folk like to say.

When someone asks a thing like this on Lemmy, look up the same thread on Reddit (guaranteed to find it was recently also posted there) and copy-pasta some of the top posts. Guaranteed worthless internet up arrows.

Encryption.

I don’t really ever travel with my laptops, at least not to put them in bags. I think the Mac laptops had a known issue with defective batteries, though.

It’s true! My last mac cost me nothing because it was provided by my job. And the case popped open after the battery swelled within a year of me getting it, something my personal laptops have never done before.

Are you finding that the assistance it provides has gotten worse over time? When I first started using it, it was quite helpful the majority of the time. In truth, it’s still pretty decent with autocomplete, just less consistently good than before. However the chat help has truly gone into decline. The amount of unfounded statements it returns is terrible.

And the latest issue is that I’ve started getting responses where it starts to show me an answer, but then hides the response and gives me an error that the response was filtered by Responsible AI.

Glad I’m not directly paying for it.