AI Code Assistants Showdown

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I’ve been using AI code assistants since the first one was mentioned, i.e. Codepilot. Long before that Chat counterparts emerged. I find it useful at times, and annoying in certain areas. But with time I found that the tech got better.

There are 4 to 5 areas for AI cost assistants:

1. Code completion or generation. This is when your writing code and the assistant tries to suggest code for you to complete the method, class or definition.

2. Code explainer. This is when you select part of a code and you ask the AI assistant to explain what that code does, or what that algorithm do.

3. Pair Programming. This is the replacement for Google Search for me. Asking the AI questions about logic, your structure, refactoring suggestions.

4. Generating Unit tests.

5. Generating complete classes with required methods from scratch.

I have a love and hate relationship with code completion. With a language I am proficient with I find myself pressing the escape button 9 out of 10 times because I don’t want any suggestions and certainly not the suggestions presented to me. When working with a new language/framework I appreciate it, and that is mostly because of my ignorance with the language and design patterns of that language/framework.

So in these cases the most useful feature for me has always been the explain code when working with a new language/frame or if I’m still learning. It beats Google search any day of the week. Just because the search results are usually shite and don’t provide value anyvalue except for the article writer.

Pair programming is one

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I’m going to be showcasing 3 scenarios and showcasing the answer from the following AI Assistance:

• CodePilot: Individual running in an IDE - $10 monthly.

• Claude 3.5 Sonnet Chat: Professional Plan on the Web using Chat - $22 monthly.

• Claude 3.5 Sonnet: API access in an IDE - PAYG.

• Gemini 1.5 Advanced Chat: Advanced plan on the web using Chat - $19.99 monthly.

• Jetbrains AI Assistant: Individual running in an IDE - $10 monthly.

• ChatGPT-4o Chat: Plus Plan on the Web using Chat - $20 monthly.

• ChatGPT-4o: API access on Web - PAYG.

There are others for sure, I tried a few, specifically Codium. I wasn't impressed honestly, and the only reason YouTubers mention it as a plus because it is free and I'm sure they get kick backs. The version I tried was the paid version and again I stress I wasn't impressed with the hype.

Righto, if you are expecting some python code examples, please just leave. There are a ton of useless video on YT, apparently videos are the way to go, no likes to read anymore!!, that attempt to give examples for comparison and they are allllllllllllllllllll in Python 🤮.

Personally I don’t code in Python…if I can help it. Besides, The world is vast and larger than Python coders. So this article is for the silent majority...Well not all of them, just the cool ones. 😎

The examples I’m going to be sharing are going to be from:

1. Unity C-Sharp script.

2. Autodesk Maya Mel Script (Technically I could do Maya Python scripts…I’ll see how my mood towards python change while writing this article)

3. Ruby on Rails (Yayyyy).

4. GameMaker Studio 2 GML scripts.

5. Open Shading Language (a.k.a OSL) scripts.