I just can't do this anymore, Copilot

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2021-07-13 15:00:04

I read a post on Hacker News this morning talking about the security vulnerabilities of Copilot. It’s really struck a chord with me, not because of the security implications or licensing issues, but because of the implication of the entire piece. Copilot makes bugs.

Talking about bugs in software development is like talking about the air for developers. We all know what it is, ironically with continuous effort to understand it, with sparse agreement on the best remedy, yet it remains utterly vital every moment.

What is a bug? A naive definition: an unintended and unseen side-effect of incomplete logic. As humans, we are wrong much of the time, even when the issue is narrow and specific. The scientific method only works because we try, repeatedly, to get the same result, probing each step along the way, in darkness, until we stumble upon the answer. Confidently proclaiming the answer, while knowing we are probably wrong and someone will soon come along to disprove us. Failure is universal.

Bugs are the only real cost in software development, and they can cost us everything. We should strive to stop making bugs, at whatever cost. We know this. Yet we also have to build. So we build, and work to reduce error continually, over our entire careers.

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