Virtual Curiosities

Copilot

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What is Copilot?

Copilot [copilot.microsoft.com] is an AI chatbot provided by Microsoft. Its website looks identical to ChatGPT's website, with a chat box to ask Copilot for things. Copilot is also available in VS Code to help with programming tasks, providing AI-generated code and in-editor code completion using its large language model.

* Coding with AI for the First Time

An AI chat box. The user virtualcuriosities (with its avatar) says: @workspace /new set up a simple rust web assembly project with a static html page. To which "Workspace" answers: Sure, here's a proposed directory structure for a Rust WebAssembly porject with a static HTML page: a tree structure is displayed, rust-wasm-project as te root node, then a src directory with a lib.rs, and a static directory with index.html and style.css. Also on root are Cargo.toml and README.md. A button reads "Create workspace..." Below, a thumbs up and a thumbs down button, followed by a plus minus button. At the bottom, a text box reads "Ask Copilot." Under it, an @ button, a paper clip button, a microphone button, and and two dropdown list buttons, one that reads GPT-4o and another that is a rightward arrow.
Copilot's chatbox answering a query to create a new project.
An animated image displaying an example of Copilot's code completion in action. After // Instantiate a ball object is typed, Copilot guesses what is the next line of code that should be written: let ball = ball::Ball::new..., and adding this line takes only a single key press.
A recording of Copilot's code completion in action. After manually typing a code comment, Copilot guesses what the next line of code should be an displays it in the editor. Pressing the Tab key inserts the Copilot's code.
Written by Noel Santos.

About the Author

I'm a self-taught Brazilian programmer graduated in IT from a FATEC. In a world of increasingly complex and essential computers, I decided to use my technical expertise in hardware, desktop applications, and web technologies to create an informative resource to make PC's easier to understand.

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