Chapter 4. Using AI for Code Creation and New Feature Development
In this chapter, you’ll learn about the practical use of SDAs in the day-to-day work of software development engineers. The topics covered include:
Accelerating code completion
Researching and exploring solutions
Delegating tasks
Using context awareness to ensure the best possible recommendations
Let’s get started by discussing how AI can help you finish coding tasks faster.
Accelerating Code Completion
Accelerating refers to the tool helping you complete a coding task faster. Software developers spend much of their time crafting code in their editor or IDE. Tools such as IntelliSense, autocomplete, linters, and spellcheckers can be useful additions to validate and suggest corrections in real time for syntax and semantics. AI brings significant new dimensions to this model.
In the IDE, SDAs function like a super-charged context completion engine. They provide completion suggestions for individual tokens, a line of code, a clause, or even an entire function. The AI gathers surrounding context from what you are working on and suggests one or more possible completions. Figure 4-1 shows a simple example of this with a coding assistant.
Figure 4-1. Function completion via SDA
The AI generates these completions by first gathering context about how and what the dev is coding. This process starts with the installed client ...
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