Did you watch the GitHub Universe keynote earlier this week? Or ought to I say, the GitHub CoPilot keynote?
I received’t speak concerning the state of AI, the CoPilot expertise itself, or any different potential points in my remark immediately. All of that can change over time, and irrespective of the place my opinion would land, I need to save my inbox. 😬 As a substitute, I need to discuss it extra broadly.
GitHub is clearly all in on CoPilot, and to show that time, it was the main target of their total keynote. CoPilot in Pull Requests, producing descriptions and explaining code. CoPilot in editors and IDEs, each first-party and increasing out into third-party too. CoPilot in every single place.
Then, because the keynote closed, they previewed “CoPilot Workspace”, and it’s an evolution of CoPilot throughout the total software program improvement course of. Open a GitHub concern, describe your drawback, shuttle with the AI to outline and edit a spec, then hit a button and have it open a Pull Request with the code and assessments carried out. Magic! 🧞
Lately, I’ve obtained a number of fairly pessimistic emails that concentrate on what may occur as this expertise matures and turns into able to issues like CoPilot Workspace. What is going to all of the software program builders do as soon as we’re out of labor? 😱
AI brings the potential for enormous change in software program improvement, and there’s a very good likelihood it’ll meaningfully change the trade. I’m not pessimistic about it, although. We’ve been by means of huge modifications earlier than, and so has nearly each different trade. It’s progress, and if AI doesn’t drive it, one thing else will.
If we do find yourself in a world the place we are able to write a GitHub concern, press a button, and see an ideal change get deployed, it’ll imply we have now to get a lot higher at writing points, and we’ve been preventing that battle for many years! If that is what makes that occur, deliver it on. 😂
Dave Verwer 
