Study of software developers' experience using the Github Copilot Tool in the software development process (2301.04991v1)

Abstract: In software development there is a constant pressure to produce code faster and faster without compromising on quality. New tools supporting developers are created in response to this demand. Currently a new generation of such solutions is about to be launched - Artificial Intelligence driven tools. On 29 June 2021 Github Copilot was announced. It uses trained model to generate code based on human understandable language. The focus of this research was to investigate software developers' approach to this tool. For this purpose a survey containing 18 questions was prepared and shared with programmers. A total of 42 answers were gathered. The results of the research indicate that developers' opinions are divided. Most of them met Github Copilot before attending the survey. The attitude to the tool was mostly positive but not many participants were willing to use it. Concerns are caused by security issues associated with using of Github Copilot.