What is GitHub Copilot?

GitHub Copilot is an AI-powered pair programmer developed by GitHub and OpenAI. It integrates directly into your editor (like VS Code, JetBrains, and Neovim) and provides real-time, autocomplete-style suggestions as you write code. It can generate entire functions, algorithms, boilerplate code, and even documentation based on the context of your comments and existing code. It aims to significantly boost developer productivity by reducing manual coding tasks and helping to solve problems faster.

Key Features

• AI Code Completion: Suggests single lines or entire blocks of code as you type.
• Natural Language to Code: Write a comment describing the logic you need, and Copilot will generate the code to implement it.
• Debugging Assistance: The integrated “Copilot Chat” can help explain errors, suggest fixes, and refactor code.
• Test Generation: Automatically create unit tests for your functions to ensure code quality.
• IDE Integration: Works seamlessly within popular Integrated Development Environments (IDEs), making it a natural part of the development workflow.
• Multi-language Support: Proficient in a wide array of programming languages, including Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Ruby, Go, and more.

Use Cases

• Accelerating Development: Quickly scaffold new projects, complete repetitive code patterns, and reduce time spent on boilerplate.
• Learning and Exploration: A great tool for learning a new programming language or framework by seeing idiomatic examples generated in real-time.
• Improving Code Quality: Generate comprehensive test cases to increase test coverage and catch bugs early.
• Code Documentation: Helps write comments and documentation by understanding the code’s purpose.

Getting Started

Getting started with GitHub Copilot is simple. Once you’ve installed the extension in your favorite IDE (e.g., VS Code):

1. Open a new file (e.g., script.py).
2. Write a comment describing what you want to do.
3. Copilot will automatically suggest the code. Press Tab to accept it.

Here’s a “Hello World” style example in Python:

```python

Create a Python function that calculates the factorial of a number

def factorial(n): “”” Calculate the factorial of a non-negative integer. “”” if n == 0: return 1 else: return n * factorial(n - 1)

Print the factorial of 5

print(factorial(5))

Pricing

GitHub Copilot operates on a subscription model:

• Free: Available for verified students, teachers, and maintainers of popular open-source projects.
• Individual: A paid monthly subscription for individual developers.
• Business: A per-user, per-month plan for organizations, which includes additional features like policy management and organization-wide access.