Github Copilot : A Groundbreaking

Code Autocomplete Tool

Xu Huajie

ABSTRACT
This paper introduces GitHub Copilot as a groundbreaking code completion tool. The tool uses
deep learning models and natural language processing technologies to provide developers with
efficient and accurate code completion functions, thereby improving development efficiency
and code quality. At the same time, the existing code completion techniques and tools are
reviewed, and their advantages and limitations are analyzed. Then, we elaborated the design
principles and implementation architecture of GitHub Copilot , including the deep learning
model and training dataset behind it. By discussing the main functions and application areas of
GitHub Copilot , it is emphasized that GitHub Copilot can improve development efficiency,
reduce coding errors and improve code quality. Explore Github by applying it in a real
programming environment. GitHub Copilot as a part of the IDE. Many software developers
spend their workday in an integrated development environment. For many Java developers,
Eclipse is the IDE of choice. Eclipse include rich Java Development Tools (JDT)
support[1] .The paper choose the Java IDE named IntelliJ IDEA. The specific practical
performance of Github Copilot in the Java IDE(include Eclipse). Finally, through our practice ,
the challenges and future development direction of GitHub Copilot are proposed , as well as the
possibility of integration with other tools and technologies. To sum up, GitHub Copilot , as an
innovative code auto-completion tool, has great potential in improving development efficiency
and code quality, and there are still many directions worth exploring in future research and
development.

INTRODUCTION
Code autocompletion serves as a crucial aid for developers, enabling them to write code more
efficiently, reduce typing errors, and receive real-time suggestions regarding code structure and
function usage. However, traditional code autocompletion tools have limitations, such as being
confined to static templates and rule-based methods, thereby failing to adapt to diverse coding
practices and dynamic development environments. The develope tools like many other IDEs,
has a built-in suggestion engine that suggests a next token whenever it can [2].

In the digital area, software development plays a pivotal role in driving technological and
societal advancements. Nevertheless, developers face various challenges, including the
laborious task of writing repetitive code, tackling complex logic, and solving specific problems
in the context of the ever-expanding size and complexity of software systems. To address these
challenges, researchers and engineers have been dedicated to developing innovative tools and
techniques that enhance development efficiency and code quality.

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive introduction to the design principles,

implementation technologies, and practical value of GitHub Copilot. We will discuss the
encountered challenges during its development and highlight the significance of code
completion in boosting development productivity, reducing errors, and enhancing code quality.
Association rules have already been used in the context of recommendation systems
forsoftware engineering[3]. Furthermore, we will explore the potential and advantages of
GitHub Copilot as an innovative tool, evaluating its applicability across different programming
languages and project types. Finally, we will discuss the future development direction of
GitHub Copilot and compare it with other related tools and technologies, aiming to uncover
opportunities for further integration and application.

Overall, this paper aims to shed light on the significance of GitHub Copilot as a cutting-edge
code autocompletion tool, its potential benefits, and the possibilities for future research and
development, while also comparing and discussing it in relation to other relevant tools and
technologies to explore avenues for further integration and application.

Existing code completion techniques and tools

In the field of software development, a variety of code auto-completion technologies and
tools already exist. These technologies and tools can automatically generate suggestions for
code snippets, functions, classes, methods, and variables based on context and user input,
helping developers improve coding speed and quality and reduce programming difficulty. Here
are some common existing code completion techniques and tools:

1. Text editor plug-ins: Many text editors (such as Sublime Text, Atom, VS Code) support a
rich plug-in ecosystem, including code auto-completion plug-ins. These plugins typically
provide intelligent code completion based on language-specific syntax rules and code bases.

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2. IDE (Integrated Development Environment) built-in auto-completion function: mainstream
integrated development environments such as IntelliJ IDEA, Eclipse, Visual Studio, etc. all
provide auto-completion functions. They provide code completion suggestions through shortcut
keys or trigger characters based on the context and grammar rules of existing code.

3. Code generation tools: Some code generation tools (such as Cogram , Yeoman, CodeSmith )
can automatically generate codes in specific fields according to predefined templates and
configurations. These tools can generate various code snippets and structures according to the
developer's needs and specifications.

4. Code Snippets Library: The Code Hint tool provides an extensive library of code snippets,
including solutions to common programming tasks and problems. Developers can search and
reuse these code snippets, speeding up development and avoiding duplication of effort. Such as:
Tabnine , Code 5 , Polycoder . while Github Copilot also falls into this category of
development tools.

Advantages of Existing Code Assistance Tools

1. Improve coding speed: Code autocompletion technology and tools can rapidly generate
code snippets, minimizing the amount of keyboard input required by developers and thus
accelerating the coding process.

2. Improve code quality: Autocompletion tools can provide code suggestions based on
grammatical rules and best practices, assisting developers in adhering to specifications and
reducing common mistakes.

3. Reduce repetitive labor: By leveraging code fragments and templates, developers can
circumvent the need for duplicating similar code segments, thereby bolstering work
efficiency.

4. Learning and educational aids: Autocompletion tools can serve as supplementary resources
for programming education, offering code examples and guidance to beginners, fostering
the acquisition and enhancement of programming skills.Limitations of Existing Code
Assistance Tools

Contextual limitations: Current auto-completion technologies predominantly rely on static

grammatical rules and templates, possessing constrained comprehension of intricate contexts
and semantics. Consequently, they may struggle to accurately anticipate developers' intentions.

Language and domain limitations: Certain auto-completion tools exhibit stronger efficacy in
specific programming languages or domains, while others may exhibit diminished support.

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 Learning curve: Certain sophisticated auto-completion tools necessitate a learning and
adaptation period for developers to acquaint themselves with their usage and configuration
options.

Impact on developer workflow

1. Improve code quality: Auto-completion tools contribute to enhanced code quality by
assisting developers in adhering to coding standards and best practices, mitigating common
errors and vulnerabilities.

2. Increase development efficiency: Code auto-completion technology and tools accelerate the
coding process by swiftly providing code suggestions and fragments, thereby reducing
development time and enhancing overall efficiency.

3. Foster collaboration and knowledge sharing: Through the sharing of code snippets and
templates, developers can actively collaborate and exchange insights, leading to improved
teamwork efficiency and knowledge dissemination.

4. Partial dependence and risk of misguidance: Excessive reliance on auto-completion tools

may inadvertently diminish developers' understanding of language syntax and grammar
rules, potentially resulting in erroneous suggestions or misleading code snippets. It is
crucial for developers to exercise critical judgment and validation when utilizing these
tools.

Existing code completion generation tools have undoubtedly contributed to increased

developer productivity and efficiency. However, they often face limitations associated with
rigid grammar rules and predefined templates, rendering them inadequate in addressing the
complexities of context and semantics. Consequently, their ability to provide comprehensive
and tailored code completion suggestions is restricted. In contrast, GitHub Copilot, leveraging
the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning, endeavors to surmount these
limitations. With heightened intelligence and adaptability, this advanced tool excels in
generating precise and personalized code suggestions that align seamlessly with the given
context and the user's coding patterns. By doing so, GitHub Copilot empowers developers with
intelligent and personalized code assistance, ushering in a new era of code completion
capabilities.

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The background and implementation principle of
GitHub Copilot
GitHub Copilot is a revolutionary tool jointly developed by GitHub and OpenAI. GitHub, a
renowned hosting platform for both open source and private software projects, boasts a massive
user base of over 100 million developers, more than 4 million organizations, and hosts over 330
million code repositories. In June 2022, GitHub released Copilot to individual customers and
included it in the free Student Pack. Codex, publicly available since November 2021, is a paid
service, accessed by writing a program that calls OpenAI’s API[4]. This vast ecosystem
provides GitHub Copilot with access to an extensive and diverse collection of source code data.

OpenAI, known for its groundbreaking advancements in artificial intelligence, has achieved
great success with the release of ChatGPT 4.0. ChatGPT is so powerful relay on the language
model, just like LLAMA. LLAMA is reliant upon of the use of statistical language models[5].
Leveraging their expertise in AI technology, OpenAI collaborates with GitHub and harnesses
the wealth of source code data available on the platform. Deep learning models such as
recurrent neural networks (RNNs) or transformers serve as the foundation for GitHub Copilot.
These models possess the ability to learn the intricacies of code, including its syntactic and
semantic structure, as well as the common coding practices employed by developers.

By combining the resources and expertise of GitHub and OpenAI, GitHub Copilot represents
a significant breakthrough in the field. This innovative tool showcases the power of
collaboration between a leading software development platform and an AI powerhouse,
offering developers an unprecedented level of code generation and assistance.

Encoder-Decoder architecture for a typical transformer model. After an embedding layer the
input gets fed into multiple attention blocks of the encoder. The output of the encoder, as well
as the current output of the whole model, is then processed by multiple attention blocks in the
decoder to produce the final output based on Vaswani et al[6].

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1. Dataset construction: GitHub Copilot uses a large number of open source code libraries and
code contributed by other developers as training data. This data is used to build deep
learning models and generate context-sensitive code suggestions.

2. Language model: GitHub Copilot uses a language model based on deep learning, such as a
recurrent neural network (RNN) or a transformer (Transformer). These models are able to
learn the syntactic and semantic structure of the code, as well as the coding habits
commonly used by developers. CodeBERT was one of the first models pretrained on pairs
of code and natural language sequences in order learn a bimodal representation of both
entities[7].

3. Context understanding: GitHub Copilot understands the developer's intentions and goals by
analyzing the developer's code context, including the code currently being written, method
signatures, variable names, and other information. It is able to generate code suggestions
that match it based on the context.

4. Code generation: Based on the trained language model and context understanding, GitHub
Copilot can generate code suggestions that match the current code snippet. These
suggestions may include functions, classes, methods, variables, etc., as well as related
syntax structures.

5. Real-time feedback: GitHub Copilot can provide code suggestions in real time based on
developer input. It can continuously adjust the generated suggestions to meet the needs of
developers as the code is continuously input and modified during the development process.

In essence, GitHub Copilot leverages state-of-the-art machine learning and natural language
processing technologies for its design and implementation. By employing large-scale code
repositories and textual data for training, coupled with an understanding of the developer's
context, it has achieved a significant breakthrough in comprehending programming
requirements through code annotations. As a result, it is capable of intelligently generating code
snippets and automating repetitive coding tasks. This advanced capability demonstrates the
potential of machine learning in enhancing code development processes and streamlining
software development workflows.

The specific practice of Github Copilot

1. Download and install IntelliJ IDEA .

https://www.jetbrains.com

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2. Install the GitHub Copilot plugin.

3. Login in and bind your GitHub account.

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4. Code practice

4.1 In the context of code development, coding requirements can be expressed and
documented through code comments within the Integrated Development Environment
(IDE). Remarkably, GitHub Copilot has the ability to analyze these code comments and
infer the underlying coding requirements, subsequently automating the generation of
corresponding code snippets. This intelligent capability showcases the potential of
leveraging natural language understanding and machine learning techniques to bridge
the gap between human intent and code implementation. When the generated code has
errors, the user needs to further enter into the debugging mode. This constant context
switching puts significant mental demand on the users[8]. By interpreting and
leveraging code comments, GitHub Copilot provides developers with an innovative
approach to streamline the coding process and facilitate the generation of accurate and
context-aware code.

4.2 Implement bubble sort

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 4.3 Implement selection sort

4.3 Realize complex judgment logic (Z word judgment ).The question is a LeetCode’s
test. LeetCode’s coding environment contains a set of test cases in multiple programming
languages[9].Use the test cases can verify whether the function method runs correctly.

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 4.4 Realize dynamic proxy

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 4.5 Implement complex logic and interface (failure )

Opinion about the GitHub Copilot

One of the advantages of GitHub Copilot is that it saves developers time and effort. By
providing real-time code suggestions, it reduces the need to manually write code, especially for
repetitive or boilerplate code segments. This is especially helpful for developers who are new to
a programming language or framework to help them learn and understand code patterns.

Additionally, GitHub Copilot facilitates collaboration and knowledge sharing among

developers. It provides code snippet suggestions based on existing code repositories and best
practices, enabling developers to leverage the collective knowledge and experience of the
coding community. This helps to increase code reusability, quality, and efficiency of the
development process. GitHub Copilot can discover the software vulnerabilities to cluster
software vulnerabilities based on different vulnerability types. Vulnerability detection in
software has been a significant re-search problem in software engineering[10].

However, GitHub Copilot is not perfect and has some limitations. Since it is a machine
learning based tool, its quality and accuracy are affected by the training data. In some cases, the
code suggestions it provides may not be optimal, depending on the developer's code level,
requiring developers to make manual adjustments.

Also, GitHub Copilot may not be suitable for all programming tasks or domains. It is more
effective for tasks involving explicit patterns and common code structures. For complex or
domain-specific scenarios, the involvement of human expertise and manual coding is still
required.

The trend of research of GitHub Copilot

1. Language support: Currently, GitHub Copilot mainly supports popular programming
languages such as Python, JavaScript, and TypeScript. However, it is possible to extend the

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 language support to cover a wider range of programming languages. Researchers can
explore techniques to adapt models to different programming paradigms and domain-
specific languages.

2. Ethical and legal considerations: As with any tool that uses AI technology, ethical and legal
considerations are important. Researchers may investigate how to ensure responsible use of
GitHub Copilot, address potential bias in code generation, and develop mechanisms to
prevent generation of copyrighted or proprietary code.

3. Code review and bug prevention: Although GitHub Copilot can generate code suggestions,
it is crucial to ensure the quality and correctness of the generated code. Researchers may
work on improving the model's ability to detect potential bugs, code reviews, and security
vulnerabilities, thereby providing more reliable and secure code recommendations.

4. Promotion of programming education: GitHub Copilot facilitates programming education

by helping beginners write code faster and accurately, accelerating the learning process. It
aids in understanding common coding patterns and best practices, improving coding skills
and style. It assists beginners in avoiding common syntax and logic errors, and through
interaction with Github Copilot, they can explore various methods and algorithms to
enhance their problem-solving abilities. Programming education help children practice
computational thinking and to encourage cooperation and engagement. [11].

Summarize
In conclusion, GitHub Copilot holds immense promise as a tool that has the potential to
significantly enhance developer productivity and coding experience. It leverages advanced
technologies, such as machine learning and natural language processing, to provide intelligent
code suggestions and generation. However, it seems fairly safe (likely obvious) to predict that
this technology will become faster, more accessible[12]. However, it is crucial for developers to
maintain a comprehensive understanding of the code and exercise independent thinking.
GitHub Copilot should be viewed as a valuable auxiliary tool rather than a substitute for human
expertise. Continuous research and development efforts will undoubtedly lead to further
improvements and advancements in the functionality and performance of GitHub Copilot,
solidifying its position as a powerful asset in the developer's toolkit.

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