Apparently no sector is safe from Amazon, which will now compete with GitHub for a new AI coding assistant from Amazon Web Services (AWS).
A new tool called Amazon CodeWhisperer provides machine learning-based advice to developers to increase productivity.
The new tool supports code written in Python, Java, and JavaScript, and the Integrated Development Environment (IDEs) such as VS Code, IntelliJ IDEA, PyCharm, WebStorm, and AWS Cloud9.
How does it work?
Amazon says CodeWhisperer will constantly check your code and your comments and present you with syntactically correct recommendations. The tech giant claims that the recommendations are synthesized based on your coding style and variable names and are “not snippets in general”.
CodeWhisperer apparently uses multiple relevant formulas to run recommendations, including the cursor’s position in the source code, the cursor’s previous code, comments, and code in other files in the same project.
Amazon says the tool was trained in “millions of lines of code” drawn from open source repositories, internal Amazon repositories, API documentation, and forums.
Users can use recommendations as they are, or improve and customize them as needed.
Support for the AWS Lambda Console is not currently on the menu but should be available ‘soon’ according to Amazon.
While this is probably welcome news for developers, it is unlikely that GitHub is celebrating. The popular coding platform has just announced that its own AI-powered coding assistant, Copilot, has entered general availability.
Developers may need all the help to stay intelligent. A report from DigitalOcean found that nearly half (42%) were considering quitting their jobs, or had already done so earlier this year, citing problems such as lack of time and resources to work on projects.
