A year ago, the Microsoft team in collaboration with Open IA, introduced GitHub Copilot. An AI-powered tool that “helps write better code” faster and with less work.
At that time, GitHub Copilot was released as a technical preview with limited access. And now, finally, it’s available to all developers. We tell you all the details.
How to access GitHub Copilot
GitHub Copilot is finally available to all developers, but there are a few things to keep in mind. It is not a tool that you can use for free, although there are some exceptions.
Developers who want to use this “AI scheduler” will have to pay a monthly subscription of $10, or $100 a year. And you can opt for a 60-day free trial.
And on the other hand, GitHub Copilot will be available for free for students and those developers who contribute to open source projects. Of course, in both cases they must be verified.
As Microsoft has mentioned in its presentation, this AI will be able to suggest codes and even complete functions in the editor, taking into account the context of the project:
When you write code or comments, GitHub Copilot suggests the next line of code. But it’s not just a single word or line of code. GitHub Copilot can suggest full methods, boilerplate code, full unit tests, and even complex algorithms.
A dynamic that can be implemented in Neovim, JetBrains IDEs, Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. Regarding the effectiveness of this tool and the dynamics it proposes, it is mentioned:
We found that users accepted on average 26% of all completions returned by GitHub Copilot. We also found that, on average, more than 27% of developer code files were generated by GitHub Copilot, and in certain languages ​​like Python, that goes as high as 40%. However, GitHub Copilot does not write perfect code.
In other words, this tool can generate the best possible code taking into account the context and a series of factors. However, it has its limitations, so it’s always a good idea to review and test the recommended code.
