The Future of Development: Embracing the Solo Journey with GitHub Copilot ??

I am leaving the solo-trepeneur vision firmly with Sam Altman. I think ideas don’t exist in a vacuum and humans need a lot of exposure to other humans. I have a cognitive bias towards being surrounded by people as a hugger and an extrovert.

I am using this serious to explore whether project management is about to go 100x, whether middle management is dead, and all the other things about AI you might have heard in the pub and be wondering about. Futurists aren’t experts, and I am not one, but I do translate tech stuff and AI to normal people every day. Please treat this as the beginning of a conversation and a starting point for some of your own debates. These views are entirely my own.

I've witnessed first-hand the seismic shifts occurring in the tech landscape, caused by the noise around generative AI over the past 18 months. It would be hard not to have noticed them from inside the Microsoft machine.

One of the most startling changes has been the advent of GitHub Copilot - a tool that I am underselling by stating it is redefining the developer experience. From 2022 to 2024 additional features have expanded it into something exciting for my developer friends; the data doesn’t lie. 55% faster overall developer productivity and 74% of people claiming they are more focused on satisfying work. I have dabbled, had some demos, but mostly I am relying on the 6x, 8x and 10x devs I call my friends to shape this thinking. I remain a low coder but GitHub copilot can allow me to expand my ability to do more without disrupting busy people with so many questions. Whether that is getting back into writing test scripts, or exploring more of the code people share with me on GitHub, or advancing my Python and JavaScript skills, I have found plenty of uses for it.

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For those who thrive in solo work environments, GitHub Copilot is a game-changer. If you disagree then I will send you a Bletchley Park AI rubber duck. If we are honest, we all know plenty of techies that prefer solo work. It's like having a collaborative partner that's available 24/7, minus the group meetings, Teams chats, stand-ups and syncs. Although my copilot is yet to turn up with an iced matcha to tell me about their latest dating drama, or notes on the best single origin pour over coffee in town. This AI pairs programming prowess with machine learning to suggest code, debug issues, and even write scripts, in real-time. It's not just about writing code faster; it's about writing smarter code. I am not a pro-dev, I would be ambitious to call myself a 0.5x dev, but so are most of you. Even the 10x devs amongst you have found some undocumented code somewhere in a language of a forgotten era and you couldn’t fathom what it was doing. That is really GitHub Copilots specialist skill.

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But what does this mean for developers who prefer flying solo? Does it mean liberation from the constraints of traditional team dynamics, for those people who are in the office three days a week, only to wish the ground would swallow them up during the standup? Does it mean the freedom to innovate at their own pace, on their terms? Does it mean a personalized learning curves and development paths that align with individual strengths and preferences?

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Let's not overlook the value of teamwork. Collaboration fosters creativity, diversity of thought, and robust solutions. GitHub Copilot doesn't replace the human touch; but does it enhances it? Does it allow teams to delegate routine coding tasks to AI, freeing up time for strategic planning and creative brainstorming? It's about complementing skills, not replacing them. If you integrate it with New Planner will it finally put an end to me asking people to tick off their own tasks in projects? A girl can dream.

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For the solo developers out there, GitHub Copilot represents an opportunity to shine. It might be a chance to harness the power of AI to bring individual projects to life with greater efficiency and precision. For team-oriented developers, it's a tool that could streamline workflows and foster a new era of collaboration.

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In the end, GitHub Copilot is not just disrupting the developer team; it might be empowering every developer to choose their path, team or no team. If the future is about flexibility, choice, and the intelligent augmentation of our human capabilities, that's a future we can all look forward to.

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