Ask HN: Do you find value in GitHub Copilot vs. ChatGPT?

[taigi100]

Hey,

Been a few months since I tried copilot and wanted to know if it got any better. Last time I tried it, it was decent but not worth the extra 10$. On the other side, ChatGPT has helped me a ton when it comes to various coding stuff.

Any opinions on how it is working in the recent months? Is it worth paying for both copilot and chatgpt?

[switch007]

I find GitHub copilot annoying, like someone trying to grab your keyboard and type. Maybe it’s just the IntelliJ plugin which is bad. I also like to write some code and see how mine compares, but it just suggests my existing code - maybe it’s just how our org has it set up, I don’t know.

I much prefer ChatGPT with its explanations etc

[speedgoose]

Copilot provides inline completion in your text editor. To me it’s very valuable and saves me a lot of time.

They also have a chat feature on preview but the model seems based on ChatGPT 3.5 and not 4, so it’s a bit useless.

[PhilippGille → speedgoose]

Not only inline completion. If you use VS Code try Ctrl+Enter. It opens a split view with multi-line generated code suggestions.

[ksaj]

I can't give an answer with the status you are probably looking for, since I am merely a hobby programmer. But I did try co-pilot, and I have gotten so much better results from ChatGPT that I'm not budging from it.

One thing is that ChatGPT can do larger code pieces. Thankfully I'm more of a functional programmer, so it's easier to not run out of output space. Another thing is that ChatGPT is happy to fix broken things and explain why it was broken in the first place.

It's not perfect. But neither is Co-pilot.

[seaal → ksaj]

Agreed, although I think the gap will close substantially once everyone has access to the Copilot X set of upgrades.