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Christian Heilmann
Christian Heilmann

Posted on • Originally published at christianheilmann.com

Code brushes for GitHub Copilot

GitHub Copilot is incredible, and if you check what's happening in the preview released as the Copilot Labs extension it will only get more amazing.

Check this out:

Code brushes applied to a simple JavaScript

Let's start with a basic JavaScript that checks a string length and reports when it is empty. One with an obvious mistake, as we use a single = instead of the type safe ===. This will always report the string as empty.

if (str.length = 0) {
    console.error('String is empty');
}
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Using the Fix bugs brush, this is rectified.

if (str.length === 0) {
    console.error('String is empty');
}
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Using the Clean brush also adds reporting when the string is not empty.

if (str.length === 0) {
    console.error('String is empty');
} else {
    console.log('String is not empty');
}
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Using the List steps brush adds comments for step (sure, this is redundant, but it also works for much more complex code).

// check the length of the string
if (str.length === 0) {
    // if length is 0, print 'String is empty' 
    console.error('String is empty');
} else {
    // if length is not 0, print 'String is not empty'
    console.log('String is not empty');
}
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Using Make robust adds error reporting instead of logging and an extra check to make sure that str is really a String and not an empty Array.

function test(str) {
    if (str.length === 0) {
        throw new Error('String is empty');
    } else if (typeof str !== 'string') {
        throw new Error('It is not a string');
    } else {
        console.log('String is not empty');
    }
}
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The Add types brush does exactly that.

/**
 * @param {string} str
 * @returns {string}
 */
function test(str) {
    if (str.length === 0) {
        throw new Error('String is empty');
    } else if (typeof str !== 'string') {
        throw new Error('It is not a string');
    } else {
        console.log('String is not empty');
    }
}
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You can also define custom brushes and there are more to come.

Top comments (8)

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jonrandy profile image
Jon Randy πŸŽ–οΈ

GitHub faces lawsuit over Copilot AI coding assistant | InfoWorld

Class-action complaint contends that training the AI system on public GitHub repos violates the legal rights of creators who posted the code under open-source licenses.

favicon infoworld.com
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kasuken profile image
Emanuele Bartolesi

@jonrandy every time you posted the same article under this kind of posts πŸ˜€

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codepo8 profile image
Christian Heilmann

Why not post the source?
githubcopilotinvestigation.com/

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jonrandy profile image
Jon Randy πŸŽ–οΈ

I just went with the first Google hit

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codepo8 profile image
Christian Heilmann

So, "stirring the sh*t vs. real concern"?

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jonrandy profile image
Jon Randy πŸŽ–οΈ • Edited

Real concern, in a rush, before a meeting. Thanks for posting a better link πŸ‘

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ioome profile image
sutton

but i like it,thank for you sharing.hhhhh.thank

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ioome profile image
sutton

wow.this is crazy. but it just will instead of a part of the code