AI-141 Using GitHub Copilot as coding assistant

AI-141: Using GitHub Copilot as coding assistant and code generator

Course Description:

GitHub Copilot is one of the most popular among coding assistant applications which help programmers to generate, refactor, explain and document program codes in dozens of languages as well to generate tests for the same codes.

An important feature of GitHub Copilot is the ability to use not only the current file but also local program libraries as well as public and private repos as context for code understanding and generation. This way GitHub Copilot can learn the programming standards and styles of the team or the whole organization and can produce code that fits well into the existing code base and can use public or company program libraries.

Main topics:

• LLMs in a nutshell
• Introduction and main features of GitHub Copilot
• Test Driven Development with GitHub Copilot
• GitHub Copilot autocompletion
• GitHub Copilot Chat
• Prompt engineering for code generation
• Advanced features (Explain, Document, Refactor, Unit-test generation)
• Adding context

Course Length: 8 training hours

Structure: 50% lecture, 50% hands on lab exercises. The lab exercises are available either in a VS Code + Python or IntelliJ + Java environment.

Target audience: Software developers and testers as well as their technical managers who want to use GitHub Copilot in their daily work.

Prerequisites: Basic understanding of AI concepts, experience in using the programming language where GitHub Copilot would be used as a coding assistant, user experience with ChatGPT or similar chatbots.