I Ignored GitHub Copilot for 4 Years — That’s about to change

GitHub Copilot was officially launched in October 2021 as a code completion and automatic programming tool developed by GitHub and OpenAI.

At that time, I was just starting at my first company. I don’t think anyone was using Copilot there yet, and it wasn’t mentioned at all — maybe because it hadn’t been officially released on Visual Studio Code.

In 2022, Copilot was officially launched on VS Code, and that’s when I started hearing about this “magic tool” that could turn comments into code.

But initially, the problem with these tools was that my company — and their clients — didn’t want to use Copilot due to concerns about possible leaks of sensitive data.

Still, as usual, we tend to check out these tools on YouTube to see how people are using them.

Most of the respected tech YouTubers, like Primeagen, who tested it for months, ended up saying they wasted more time trying to make the tool understand and fix problems than just doing it manually.

They also mentioned how your brain can shift into “autopilot” mode — adding code without fully considering the impact on the project.

At that time, I remember most of my colleagues were using it, but based on the outcomes I mentioned, I decided not to.

What I was doing instead was replacing “traditional” searches with AI-based searches.

I actually felt more confident in my skills, so I didn’t need to look things up constantly. But when I did, I usually went straight to the official documentation or checked similar implementations we had previously used. And finally — if I was still stuck — I turned to AI-based search.

These AI engines used to do what modern chatbots do today: give you a solution with references and links directly in the chat, which was very impressive at the time.

Today, my workflow is very similar. I’m much more comfortable with my skills, so I don’t usually check anything outside of my project. But when I need help, I target a specific GitHub issue (if the problem is library-related), consult the official docs, or perform a search — though nowadays, almost every search engine uses AI anyway.

But now, something’s about to change — I’m going to integrate GitHub Copilot into my IDE (neovim, btw).

I’m planning to document the next month around this topic, taking notes on how it impacts my daily life as a software engineer.

Let me know in the comments if you want me to test specific things during the next weeks— and stay tuned!