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Programming can be a challenge for students learning to program. The blank screen and the expectation of writing functional code from scratch can be intimidating. This is where artificial intelligence (AI) tools like GitHub Copilot come in: they provide suggestions and autocompletes to increase coding productivity.
See more: GitHub Copilot VSCode
What is GitHub Copilot?
GitHub Copilot is an AI pair programmer developed by GitHub in collaboration with OpenAI. It uses a technique called machine learning to analyze millions of lines of public code and learn coding patterns and conventions. Copilot then makes inline suggestions as you type in your code editor, saving you time and reducing errors.
The tool is available as a free Visual Studio Code extension for verified students through GitHub’s Student Developer Pack. Once installed, it provides context-relevant code completions and full function definitions in more than a dozen popular programming languages.
Key features for students
GitHub Copilot has a range of capabilities tailored to beginner coders:
Faster code completions
Copilot speeds up code editing by suggesting completions for half-finished lines. This allows you to focus on the program logic rather than the syntax. For example, after you type “for i in range”, the rest of the Python snippet can be autocompleted.
Function and method definitions
Another important feature is suggestions for full functions and methods. Copilot can generate complete definitions, taking into account the context of the surrounding code and comments. This is useful if you know what you want to implement, but don’t want to code it manually.
Translate comments into code
GitHub Copilot can interpret comments in readable English text and suggest relevant code. For example, after a comment like “//format date” it can produce a function to format a date string correctly. This makes it easier to translate ideas into code.
Code refactoring suggestions
Copilot can recommend alternative ways to write a block of code that follows best practices and programming patterns. This helps student developers write more idiomatic, reusable code.
Error and bug detection
In some cases, Copilot may notice potential syntax issues, termination warnings, infinite loops, or other bugs and flag them inline. This provides feedback for students to improve their code.
How to use GitHub Copilot
As a verified student, you can enable GitHub Copilot in a few simple steps:
1. Check student status
First, go to the GitHub Campus website to verify your student status. You will need to log in with your GitHub account and upload a registration confirmation.
2. Unlock the Student Developer Pack
Once verified, you can claim the Student Developer Pack from GitHub. This gives you free access to GitHub Copilot and other developer tools and services while you study.
3. Install the Copilot extension
Finally, install the GitHub Copilot extension for Visual Studio Code from the marketplace. After a quick installation, it’s ready to suggest code completions as you type.
And that’s it! The onboarding process takes less than 5 minutes. Copilot integrates seamlessly into VS Code without impacting performance.
Also read: Free trial of GitHub Copilot
GitHub copilot in action: real-world examples
Here are some examples of how GitHub Copilot can accelerate development workflows for student coders:
Bootstrapping project templates
Copilot excels at generating boilerplate code from scratch to initialize projects, build scripts, web frameworks, cloud infrastructure, and more. This means less time copying templates and more time building.
For example, after commenting // setting up a React app, Copilot can set up a complete React project with directories, dependencies, component stubs, and a ready-made index file.
Encryption algorithms and data structures
Practicing algorithms and data structures is critical for Computer Science students. GitHub Copilot can help by providing building blocks such as tree traversal algorithms or dynamic programming solutions.
Students can adapt Copilot’s suggestions to strengthen understanding or use them as inspiration for coding algorithms from basic principles. This makes studying for interview coding more productive.
Implement CRUD operations
Creating CRUD (create, read, update, delete) APIs and database persistence layers requires a fair amount of repetitive code. Copilot accelerates this by generating complete endpoints, controller methods, and data access functions with proper input validation.
By handling the nasty stuff, Copilot allows students to focus on building high-level application functionality and business logic.
Key benefits for students
Here’s a quick overview of the top benefits GitHub Copilot offers to students learning to code:
- Edit faster: Autocomplete suggestions result in up to 5x faster code editing. Students spend less time solving syntax problems and can code more fluently.
- Fewer bugs: Copilot often catches and prevents subtle errors and bad practices that tools like linters miss. Cleaner code means less frustrating searches for bugs.
- Focus better: With Copilot helping with everyday coding, students can focus mental energy on core concepts like architecture, design, performance, etc.
- Improved productivity: Students can implement more functionality in a shorter period of time by using Copilot’s code generation capabilities.
- Latest best practices: Because Copilot learns from modern, real-world code, it encourages writing idiomatic code using up-to-date libraries and APIs.
- Build trust: Successfully integrating Copilot’s suggestions into projects strengthens coding skills and demonstrates what students have learned.
While not a silver bullet to mastering, GitHub Copilot meaningfully increases programming productivity, helping students take their coding skills to the next level.
Responsible usage practices
While it’s immensely powerful, it’s worth having reasonable expectations for Copilot’s capabilities. The tool has limitations and responsible use is critical, especially for novice developers. Here are some best practices:
- Review all suggestions thoroughly: Blindly accepting Copilot’s code may encourage cargo cult programming. Students must manually review the code to strengthen understanding.
- Augmentation over automation: Use Copilot to speed up your own coding instead of relying on it as a crutch. The focus should be on leveraging it to improve coding skills.
- Cite the code correctly: Don’t forget to cite any significant code snippets suggested by Copilot that you integrate into projects – just like any other external source.
By following these principles, students can reap the productivity gains of Copilot while still mastering fundamental coding techniques.
The future with GitHub Copilot
GitHub Copilot gives a first look at what’s possible when you combine coding with AI support. Its capabilities will rapidly improve as the underlying models process more training data across domains.
In the future, expect GitHub to expand language support and introduce improvements such as error message interpretation, automated code reviews, security vulnerability scanning, and test case generation. Integrations with additional tools such as debuggers and profilers can also streamline entire developer workflows.
For students, more intelligent coding tools free up time to learn computer science concepts in depth and focus on unlocking creative potential rather than getting bogged down in implementation details. GitHub Copilot aims to make programming more intuitive, collaborative, and accessible. The future looks bright for the next generation of student developers!
Conclusion
Here are key insights into how GitHub Copilot boosts coding productivity for students:
- Autocompletes code and full functions to speed up editing
- Translates natural language comments into code
- Detects bugs and suggests improvements for better code quality
- Provides standard templates to get projects started faster
- Allows you to focus mental energy on computer science concepts rather than syntax
- Supports more than a dozen programming languages with more on the way
- Available for free to verified students through the GitHub Student Developer Pack
- Responsible use that focuses on augmentation rather than automation is encouraged
By combining the creativity of human developers with the power of AI, GitHub Copilot allows students to take their coding skills to the next level and turn their imaginations into code at lightning speed!
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