Github Copilot.. Now this is the new beast right ? Everybody is scared or at least worried about its capabilities.. Junior developers are thinking about a career shift ?

Ok, I personally only see it much like an x86 programmer in the 70's astonished by a C compiler turning his "human words C code" into a working x86 ASM instructions..

So at the end of the day, nothing changes.. still the same game.. just re-arrangement of what the human should manage and what the machine should manage.

People often think if the machine becomes able to fully accomplish one of their tasks, it means they are becoming jobless.. false.. it means they have more new kind of jobs and problems to solve.

And even if we take apart the story of skills adaption, and assume you wanna stay at your exact current field of expertise, do you really think tools like copilot will "kill" the need for developers who know how to write high quality code? I really really doubt it, I rather think it will force them to fasten the belts and grow a bit more towards their best level of expertise.. and, ok, I would agree it will eliminate those with low capabilities who refuse to grow and stay at their mediocre level.

Back to our assembly example (sorry that was my first love and will apparently stay forever), although compilers almost killed hundred of thousands of job positions requiring x86 programmers, look how rare it is today to fall on a skilled developer who masters the art of writing, debugging, or optimizing a compiler.. or reverse engineering malicious code..

Very very few ones right ? because they all rely on compilers and automated tools to do the stuff. Probably half of developers nowadays might not even know what happens to their source code when they press the "run" button.

So, do you think those highly skilled x86 programmers are today jobless.. or rather being spammed day and night by recruiters of giant IT companies?

Embrace the change and don't oppose it. “The Only Constant in Life Is Change.”- Heraclitus

#github #copilot #javascript #career #people #php