AI-Assisted Programming: Better Planning, Coding, Testing, and Deployment

Cover....1 Copyright....6 Table of Contents....7 Foreword....13 Preface....15 What’s Covered....16 How This Book Is Different....17 Who Should Read This Book....17 Conventions Used in This Book....17 Using Code Examples....18 O’Reilly Online Learning....18 How to Contact Us....19 Acknowledgments....19 Chapter 1. New World for Developers....21 Evolution and Revolution....22 Generative AI....25 The Benefits....26 Minimizing Search....26 Your Advisor....28 IDE Integration....29 Reflecting Your Codebase....30 Code Integrity....31 AI-Powered Documentation Generator....31 Modernization....32 Drawbacks....35 Hallucinations....35 Intellectual Property....35 Privacy....36 Security....37 Training Data....37 Bias....38 A New Way for Developers....38 Career....39 10x Developer?....39 Skills of the Developer....40 Conclusion....40 Chapter 2. How AI Coding Technology Works....41 Key Features....41 Code Suggestions and Context-Aware Completions Versus Smart Code Completion....42 Compilers Versus AI-Assisted Programming Tools....43 Levels of Capability....44 Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs)....46 Evolution....46 The Transformer Model....47 OpenAI Playground....50 Evaluating LLMs....55 Types of LLMs....58 Evaluation of AI-Assisted Programming Tools....60 Conclusion....61 Chapter 3. Prompt Engineering....63 Art and Science....64 Challenges....64 The Prompt....65 Context....66 Instructions....66 Summarization....67 Text Classification....68 Recommendation....68 Translation....69 Input of Content....70 Format....70 Best Practices....71 Be Specific....71 Acronyms and Technical Terms....72 Zero- and Few-Shot Learning....73 Leading Words....74 Chain of Thought (CoT) Prompting....74 Leading Questions....75 Ask for Examples and Analogies....75 Reducing Hallucinations....76 Security and Privacy....77 Autonomous AI Agents....78 Conclusion....80 Chapter 4. GitHub Copilot....81 GitHub Copilot....81 Pricing and Versions....82 Use Case: Programming Hardware....83 Use Case: Shopify....84 Use Case: Accenture....85 Security....85 Getting Started....86 Codespaces and Visual Studio Code....87 Suggestions....89 Comments....92 Chat....92 Inline Chat....97 Open Tabs....99 Command-Line Interface....100 Copilot Partner Program....101 Conclusion....102 Chapter 5. Other AI-Assisted Programming Tools....103 Amazon’s CodeWhisperer....103 Google’s Duet AI for Developers....105 Tabnine....107 Replit....108 CodeGPT....111 Cody....111 CodeWP....113 Warp....114 Bito AI....116 Cursor....117 Code Llama....118 Other Open Source Models....119 StableCode....119 AlphaCode....120 PolyCoder....120 CodeT5....121 Enterprise Software Companies....121 Conclusion....122 Chapter 6. ChatGPT and Other General-Purpose LLMs....123 ChatGPT....123 GPT-4....124 Navigating ChatGPT....125 Mobile App....128 Custom Instructions....129 Browse with Bing....129 Tedious Tasks....133 Regular Expressions....134 Starter Code....135 GitHub README....135 Cross-Browser Compatibility....136 Bash Commands....137 GitHub Actions....137 Plugins....138 The Codecademy Plugin....139 The AskYourDatabase Plugin....140 Recombinant AI Plugin....141 GPTs....141 Gemini....143 Applications....145 Gemini for Coding....146 Claude....148 Conclusion....150 Chapter 7. Ideas, Planning, and Requirements....151 Brainstorming....151 Market Research....153 Market Trends....155 Total Addressable Market....156 Competition....157 Requirements....159 Product Requirements Document....160 Software Requirements Specification....161 Interviews....162 Whiteboarding....163 Tone....164 Approaches to Project Planning....165 Test-Driven Development (TDD)....167 Planning Web Design....169 Conclusion....172 Chapter 8. Coding....173 Reality Check....173 Judgment Calls....175 Learning....176 Comments....177 Modular Programming....178 Starting a Project....179 Autofill....180 Refactoring....182 Ninja Code....182 Extract Method....183 Decomposing Conditionals....184 Renaming....184 Dead Code....185 Functions....186 Object-Oriented Programing....187 Frameworks and Libraries....188 Data....189 Frontend Development....191 CSS....192 Creating Graphics....192 AI Tools....193 APIs....196 Conclusion....197 Chapter 9. Debugging, Testing, and Deployment....199 Debugging....199 Documentation....200 Code Review....202 Unit Tests....203 Pull Requests....206 Deployment....207 User Feedback....209 The Launch....210 Conclusion....211 Chapter 10. Takeaways....213 The Learning Curve Is Steep....213 There Are Major Benefits....214 But There Are Drawbacks....214 Prompt Engineering Is an Art and Science....215 Beyond Programming....215 AI Won’t Take Your Job....216 Conclusion....216 Index....217 About the Author....224 Colophon....224