Introduction:
As the development landscape evolves, artificial intelligence (AI) is being integrated into software development tools to increase productivity and efficiency. Two such tools are Amazon CodeWhisperer and GitHub Copilot. Both tools use AI to analyze and suggest snippets to full functions code. But which one is better? In this article, we'll compare Amazon CodeWhisperer and GitHub Copilot to help you decide which tool to use for your development projects and showcase how to install Amazon CodeWhisperer and use it.
Overview:
- Amazon CodeWhisperer is trained on billions of lines of code and can generate code suggestions ranging from snippets to full functions in real time based on your comments and existing code. Bypass time-consuming coding tasks and accelerate building with unfamiliar APIs.
The programming languages with the most support are:
Java | Python | JavaScript | TypeScript | C#
But CodeWhisperer also supports code generation for:
Ruby | Go | PHP | C++ | C | Shell | Scala | Rust | Kotlin | SQL
There are 4 major advantages CodeWhisperer provides which are :
1- CodeWhisperer can flag or filter code suggestions that resemble open-source training data. Get the associated open-source project’s repository URL and license 📝 so that you can more easily review them and add attribution.
2- CodeWhisperer can Scan your code 🕵️♂️ to detect hard-to-find vulnerabilities, and get code suggestions to remediate them immediately. Align to best practices for tackling security vulnerabilities, such as those outlined by Open Worldwide Application Security Project (OWASP), or those that don't meet crypto library best practices and other similar security best practices.
3- When it comes to writing code related to AWS services and technologies, CodeWhisperer typically does a better job than Copilot.
4- It's 💯 FREE for Individual use! 🤯
- GitHub Copilot, on the other hand, is an AI-powered code completion tool that suggests code snippets and functions based on the context of the code being written. Developed by GitHub and OpenAI, Copilot uses a machine learning model trained on billions of lines of code to generate code suggestions. Copilot is available as a Visual Studio Code extension.
GitHub Copilot provides suggestions for numerous languages and a wide variety of frameworks, but works especially well for Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Ruby, Go, C# and C++. GitHub Copilot can also assist in query generation for databases.
GitHub Copilot and Amazon CodeWhisperer differ in that Copilot is a general-purpose AI-driven development tool, while CodeWhisperer is primarily tailored to meet the needs of developers working with Amazon platforms, such as Amazon Web Services while supporting using programming languages of course.
Although GitHub Copilot is hosted on a platform owned by Microsoft, it is not specifically designed to support Microsoft technologies or programming use cases associated with Microsoft.
There is 1 major advantage Copilot provides which is :
Copilot supports almost all of the major IDEs and more programming languages.
Making a Decision Between Amazon CodeWhisperer and GitHub Copilot 🤔 :
Personally I would use Amazon CodeWhisperer since it's free and integrates well with AWS Services and has major advantages for me to use that Github Copilot doesn't have which were discussed earlier but generally your choice might differ depending on which programming language or IDE you are using so make sure you use the suitable one for your usage and needs!
Now for the exciting part! 🤩
Let's start our tutorial on how to install Amazon CodeWhisperer and use it. 🧐
Step 1
- Install the latest AWS Toolkit plugin in your integrated development environment (IDE).
Supported IDEs include Visual Studio (VS) Code and JetBrains IDEs.
We will be using Visual Studio Code in our demo.
Step 2
- Next you will navigate to your installed extensions on the left panel where you will find your newly installed plugin "AWS Toolkit" which has the AWS Logo.
Then you will choose CodeWhisperer from the developer tools panel then click start then Sign up like shown over here in the screenshot.
After clicking on Sign up you will be asked to copy a code which you will need because after that you will be redirected to AWS to authorize the request of signing up and linking CodeWhisperer to your IDE through AWS skill builder.
Follow the instructions to sign up or sign in if you already have an existing AWS skill builder ID and when you are done you will be receiving this message which says AWS Toolkit for VSCode can now access your data.
💪 Congrats you have just enabled CodeWhisperer on your IDE and you can start coding with the power of AI ! 😎
Here is a quick demo provided by AWS CodeWhisperer.
We have reached the end of the tutorial, Thank you 🙏 for taking the time to read and follow this tutorial. I hope that the information and guidance provided here has been helpful.
If you have any questions though please leave a comment and I will respond ASAP !
See you later 👋
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