I've used Copilot a bit and found it helpful for both coding and maintenance. My setup is pretty basic, and I only use it in places where the task is tedious and I am confident reviewing the diff or other output is sufficient. Things like:
"Refactor: We are replacing FlogSnarble with FloozBazzle. Review the example usage below and replace all usage across the codebase. <put an example>"
"In the browser console I see the error below. The table headers are also squished to the left while the row contents are squished to the right. Propose a fix. <pasted log and stack trace>."
"Restructure to early exit style and return an optional rather than use exceptions."
"Consolidate sliceCheese and all similar cheese-related utility functions into one file. Include doc comments noting the original location for each function."
By construction the resulting changes pass tests, come with an explainer outlining what was changed and why, and are open in tabs in VS Code for review. Meanwhile I can spend the time reading docs, dealing with house keeping tasks, and improving the design of what I'm doing. Better output, less RSI.
The reason I tend not to use LLMs for these taks is that they are great for thinking moments. They're so mechanical that you tend to reflect instead. Also I use Vim and Emacs which are great for that type of works (fast navigation and good editing tools) and it's not as tedious as doing in editors like VS Code and Sublime (which are not great at editing). You can even concoct something with tmux, ripgrep/fzf, and nano that is better than VS Code at this.
"Refactor: We are replacing FlogSnarble with FloozBazzle. Review the example usage below and replace all usage across the codebase. <put an example>"
"In the browser console I see the error below. The table headers are also squished to the left while the row contents are squished to the right. Propose a fix. <pasted log and stack trace>."
"Restructure to early exit style and return an optional rather than use exceptions."
"Consolidate sliceCheese and all similar cheese-related utility functions into one file. Include doc comments noting the original location for each function."
By construction the resulting changes pass tests, come with an explainer outlining what was changed and why, and are open in tabs in VS Code for review. Meanwhile I can spend the time reading docs, dealing with house keeping tasks, and improving the design of what I'm doing. Better output, less RSI.