Deep Dive into AI-Powered Coding Assistants: A Comparative Analysis of Copilot and Bito (Part 1)
Published: 2023-11-02 05:16:45

Evaluating Bito and GitHub Copilot for Developer Productivity: A Deep Dive into Code Suggestions, Machine Learning Scenarios, and Real-World Applications

![Image description] (https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/hjmn8m67ufroehreubda.jpg)

In the modern era of software development, AI-powered coding tools are a game-changer. They not only streamline the coding process but also significantly boost developers’ productivity. If you’re a data scientist like me or a developer, you’ve probably noticed a surge in AI coding assistants lately. It seems like new ones are coming out all the time. The quest for efficiency and productivity in this domain is never-ending. But with a plethora of options available, how do you choose the one that’s right for you? That’s where I come in. To save you the hassle, I’ve embarked on a journey to compare these AI coding assistants, so you don’t have to. Today, I’m comparing Bito and Copilot.

Among the frontrunners in this AI-assisted coding race are Copilot and Bito, both of which have garnered attention for their innovative features and capabilities. This is a 3 part series of articles where we delve deep into a use case comparison between Copilot and Bito, focusing on these pivotal features. Through a series of scenarios, we’ll evaluate their performance, shedding light on their strengths and areas of improvement. By the end, we aim to provide a comprehensive understanding of which tool excels in which scenario, helping developers make an informed choice tailored to their specific needs.

## **Use case Comparison**
In the realm of AI code assistants, features alone don’t paint the complete picture. It’s the real-world application of these features that truly determines the value of such tools. To provide a holistic evaluation of Bito and Copilot, I have crafted three use-case scenarios, each meticulously designed to test the pivotal features that developers deem essential.

## **Scenario 1: Complex Coding Task Comparison**

- Linked Features: Real-time Code Completion, Contextual Understanding, Code Refactoring, and Support for Multiple Languages.
- Objective: This scenario will simulate a complex coding task, allowing us to observe how efficiently each tool offers code suggestions, understands the broader context, and suggests refactoring options. It will also enable us to see the versatility of each tool across different programming languages.

## **Complex Coding Task Comparison**
- **Coding Task:** Implementing a machine learning model for predicting housing prices.

- **Detailed Prompt:** “Provide me the detailed code to implement a machine learning model to predict housing prices. train data on different models and then perform model selection, hyperparameter tuning. Also, add detailed feature engineering and data cleaning steps.”

## Bito:
Check these videos out to see the outputs Bito provided

{% embed https://youtu.be/wdv4u2yVH10 %}

{% embed https://youtu.be/5XbNVZ121wM %}

**Input:**

_Provide me with the detailed code to implement a machine learning model to predict housing prices. train data on different models and then perform model selection, and hyperparameter tuning. Also, add detailed feature engineering and data cleaning steps._

**Output:**
_Sure, here is a detailed code to implement a machine learning model to predict housing prices:_

Step 1: Importing necessary libraries

```python
import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
from sklearn.linear_model import LinearRegression
from sklearn.tree import DecisionTreeRegressor
from sklearn.ensemble import RandomForestRegressor
from sklearn.metrics import mean_squared_error
from sklearn.model_selection import GridSearchCV
```
_Step 2: Loading the dataset_

```python
data = pd.read_csv('housing.csv')
```
_Step 3: Exploratory Data Analysis_

```python
data.head()
data.info()
data.describe()
```
_Step 4: Data Cleaning_

```python
# Checking for missing values
data.isnull().sum()
# Dropping the columns with too many missing values
data.drop(['column1', 'column2'], axis=1, inplace=True)
# Filling missing values with mean/median/mode
data['column3'].fillna(data['column3'].mean(), inplace=True)
# Removing outliers
data = data[(data['column4'] < 5000) & (data['column5'] > 1000)]
```
_Step 5: Feature Engineering_

```python
# Creating new features
data['feature1'] = data['column6'] + data['column7']
data['feature2'] = data['column8'] / data['column9']
# Encoding categorical variables
data = pd.get_dummies(data, columns=['column10', 'column11'])
```

_Step 6: Splitting the data into training and testing sets_

```python
X = data.drop('target_variable', axis=1)
y = data['target_variable']
X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(X, y, test_size=0.2, random_state=42)
```

_Step 7: Training different models_

```python
# Linear Regression
lr = LinearRegression()
lr.fit(X_train, y_train)
# Decision Tree Regressor
dt = DecisionTreeRegressor(random_state=42)
dt.fit(X_train, y_train)
# Random Forest Regressor
rf = RandomForestRegressor(random_state=42)
rf.fit(X_train, y_train)
```

_Step 8: Model Selection_

```python
# Evaluating the models
lr_pred = lr.predict(X_test)
dt_pred = dt.predict(X_test)
rf_pred = rf.predict(X_test)
print('Linear Regression RMSE:', np.sqrt(mean_squared_error(y_test, lr_pred)))
print('Decision Tree RMSE:', np.sqrt(mean_squared_error(y_test, dt_pred)))
print('Random Forest RMSE:', np.sqrt(mean_squared_error(y_test, rf_pred)))
# Selecting the best model
best_model = rf
```

_Step 9: Hyperparameter Tuning_

```python
# Defining the hyperparameters to tune
params = {
'n_estimators': [100, 200, 300],
'max_depth': [10, 20, 30],
'min_samples_split': [2, 5, 10],
'min_samples_leaf': [1, 2, 4]
}
# Performing Grid Search CV
grid_search = GridSearchCV(estimator=best_model, param_grid=params, cv=5, n_jobs=-1)
grid_search.fit(X_train, y_train)
# Selecting the best model
best_model = grid_search.best_estimator_
```
_Step 10: Making Predictions_

```python
# Making predictions on new data
new_data = pd.read_csv('new_data.csv')
new_data = pd.get_dummies(new_data, columns=['column10', 'column11'])
predictions = best_model.predict(new_data)
```

**Analysis of Bito’s Output for Complex Coding Task**
**Strengths:**

1. Contextual Relevance: Bito’s output is contextually tailored, making the code suggestions pertinent to the dataset and the task, such as predicting housing prices.
2. Diverse Model Suggestions: The tool provides code for a variety of predictive models, namely Linear Regression, Decision Tree Regressor, and Random Forest Regressor.
3. Code Accuracy: Bito’s generated code is both syntactically correct and semantically tailored, ensuring its relevance and correctness.
4. Integration with Existing Codebases: The detailed and accurate nature of the code ensures that it can integrate seamlessly with pre-existing codebases.
5. Promotion of Readability and Maintainability: Bito’s attention to detail in its code suggestions enhances the readability and maintainability of the generated code.
6. Detailed Explanations: Especially in areas like security, Bito provides extensive context and explanations, which can be invaluable for developers who want to understand the code they’re implementing.

**Areas of Improvement:**

1. Model Selection: A wider variety of machine learning models might be beneficial to ensure optimal performance.
2. Conciseness for Experienced Developers: While detailed explanations are beneficial for many, seasoned developers might prefer more concise and direct code suggestions, especially when they’re seeking quick solutions.

In conclusion, Bito demonstrates significant potential as a coding assistant, especially beneficial for developers who appreciate in-depth explanations and context. However, there’s scope for refining its output, particularly in the realms of code optimization, model variety, and the balancing of detail versus conciseness.

---

**Github Copilot**
Check these videos out to see the output Copilot provided

{% embed https://youtu.be/Q5_gc65suJ0 %}

{% embed https://youtu.be/zcpkh_fFxBQ %}

**Input:**

_Write code to implement a machine learning model to predict housing prices. I need suggestions for selecting the right algorithms, preprocessing the data, and tuning hyperparameters. Provide code snippets for data cleaning, feature engineering, and model training, and highlight the efficiency and accuracy of the suggestions._

**Output:**

```python
# Importing the libraries
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import pandas as pd
import seaborn as sns
import sklearn
from sklearn import preprocessing
from sklearn.preprocessing import StandardScaler
from sklearn.model_selection import train_test_split
from sklearn.metrics import mean_squared_error
from sklearn.metrics import r2_score
from sklearn.linear_model import LinearRegression
from sklearn.linear_model import Ridge
from sklearn.linear_model import Lasso
# Importing the dataset
dataset = pd.read_csv('kc_house_data.csv')
dataset.head()
# Data Preprocessing
dataset.isnull().sum()
dataset.info()
dataset.describe()
# Data Visualization
sns.pairplot(dataset)
sns.distplot(dataset['price'])
sns.heatmap(dataset.corr(), annot=True)
# Feature Engineering
dataset.drop(['id', 'date'], axis=1, inplace=True)
dataset.head()
# Splitting the dataset into the Training set and Test set
X = dataset.iloc[:, 1:].values
y = dataset.iloc[:, 0].values
X_train, X_test, y_train, y_test = train_test_split(X, y, test_size=0.2, random_state=0)
# Feature Scaling
sc = StandardScaler()
X_train = sc.fit_transform(X_train)
X_test = sc.transform(X_test)
# Training the Linear Regression model on the Training set
regressor = LinearRegression()
regressor.fit(X_train, y_train)
# Training the Ridge Regression model on the Training set
regressor = Ridge(alpha=0.5)
regressor.fit(X_train, y_train)
# Training the Lasso Regression model on the Training set
regressor = Lasso(alpha=0.5)
regressor.fit(X_train, y_train)
# Predicting the Test set results
y_pred = regressor.predict(X_test)
# Evaluating the Model Performance
print('Mean Squared Error:', mean_squared_error(y_test, y_pred))
print('R2 Score:', r2_score(y_test, y_pred))
# Tuning the Model
from sklearn.model_selection import GridSearchCV
parameters = [{'alpha': [0.5, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]}]
grid_search = GridSearchCV(estimator=regressor, param_grid=parameters, scoring='r2', cv=10, n_jobs=-1)
grid_search.fit(X_train, y_train)
best_accuracy = grid_search.best_score_
best_parameters = grid_search.best_params_
print('Best Accuracy:', best_accuracy)
print('Best Parameters:', best_parameters)
# Training the Ridge Regression model on the Training set with best parameters
regressor = Ridge(alpha=0.5)
regressor.fit(X_train, y_train)
# Predicting the Test set results
y_pred = regressor.predict(X_test)
# Evaluating the Model Performance
print('Mean Squared Error:', mean_squared_error(y_test, y_pred))
print('R2 Score:', r2_score(y_test, y_pred))
# Tuning the Model
from sklearn.model_selection import GridSearchCV
parameters = [{'alpha': [0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5]}]
grid_search = GridSearchCV(estimator=regressor, param_grid=parameters, scoring='r2', cv=10, n_jobs=-1)
grid_search.fit(X_train, y_train)
best_accuracy = grid_search.best_score_
best_parameters = grid_search.best_params_
print('Best Accuracy:', best_accuracy)
print('Best Parameters:', best_parameters)
# Training the Ridge Regression model on the Training set with best parameters
regressor = Ridge(alpha=0.1)
regressor.fit(X_train, y_train)
# Predicting the Test set results
y_pred = regressor.predict(X_test)
# Evaluating the Model Performance
print('Mean Squared Error:', mean_squared_error(y_test, y_pred))
print('R2 Score:', r2_score(y_test, y_pred))
```

## **Analysis of Copilot’s Output for Use Case 1**
**Strengths:**

1. Comprehensive Code Structure: Copilot provides a structured approach to the problem, starting from importing libraries to data preprocessing, visualization, model training, and evaluation.
2. Data Visualization: The inclusion of data visualization techniques like pair plots, distribution plots, and heatmaps can be beneficial for an initial exploratory data analysis.
3. Hyperparameter Tuning: Copilot introduces the concept of hyperparameter tuning using GridSearchCV, which is essential for optimizing model performance.
4. Structured Approach: Copilot provides a structured approach to the problem by attempting to train multiple models, namely Linear Regression, Ridge Regression, and Lasso Regression.
5. Visualization: The tool offers visualization of the results, which can be beneficial for a quick visual assessment of the model’s performance.

**Areas of Improvement:**

1. Unnecessary Imports: There are instances of redundant imports, such as importing StandardScaler twice. Additionally, some libraries, like numpy, are imported but not utilized in the code.
2. Data Preprocessing: While Copilot displays data info, checks for null values, and provides a statistical description, it doesn’t take actionable steps based on these observations.
3. Feature Engineering: The decision to drop the ‘id’ and ‘date’ columns isn’t backed by a clear rationale. While there might be valid reasons, the code doesn’t provide context for this decision.
4. Hyperparameter Tuning: While the input specifically requested hyperparameter tuning, the provided code sets fixed hyperparameters (alpha=0.5) for both Ridge and Lasso regression. The absence of a hyperparameter search or optimization process is a missed opportunity to potentially enhance the model’s performance.
5. Model Training: Multiple regression models are trained, but only the Lasso regressor’s predictions are evaluated. This approach overlooks the potential benefits of comparing the performance of different models on the dataset.
6. Overwriting the Model: Copilot overwrites the regressor variable with each model without evaluating or storing the results of the previous models. This approach results in only the Lasso Regression model being used for predictions and evaluations, leaving the performance of Linear and Ridge regression unchecked.
7. Inaccuracy in specific requests: While the input specifically requested hyperparameter tuning, the provided code sets fixed hyperparameters (alpha=0.5) for both Ridge and Lasso regression. The absence of a hyperparameter search or optimization process is a missed opportunity to potentially enhance the model’s performance.
8. Hyperparameter Tuning Approach: The tuning process for the Ridge model appears redundant. Ideally, after a broad hyperparameter search, the search should be narrowed based on the best results. However, Copilot retrains the model with a default value and then tunes it again, which may not be the most efficient approach.

In conclusion, while Copilot offers a comprehensive solution with a structured approach to the problem, there are areas where the code can be optimized for efficiency and clarity, such as redundancy in imports, clarity in feature engineering decisions, and efficiency in hyperparameter tuning, where it could be better optimized.

## **Final Take — Relevance to Developers**
For developers working on machine learning projects, Bito’s capabilities in Scenario 1 offer a distinct advantage. Bito’s context-aware code suggestions, tailored to the specific dataset and tasks, provide not just code but also a deeper understanding of the underlying principles. This is particularly important in machine learning, where algorithm selection, data preprocessing, and hyperparameter tuning can make or break a model’s performance.

On the other hand, GitHub Copilot shines in more straightforward coding tasks and is excellent for developers who are looking for quick, generic code snippets. It’s particularly useful for those who are new to a programming language or framework and need instant guidance. Copilot’s seamless integration with GitHub also makes it a convenient option for developers already invested in the GitHub ecosystem.

## **Conclusion**
When it comes to complex coding tasks, Bito has a slight edge due to its context-sensitive and tailored code suggestions. It also maintains a consistent code style, which is beneficial for team projects. Copilot, while robust, can sometimes produce generic or redundant code. However, it excels in quick code completions and is a great starting point for developers new to a language or framework.

Both Bito and GitHub Copilot have their merits, and the choice ultimately depends on a developer’s specific needs and the nature of the project at hand. While Bito offers a more nuanced and context-aware coding experience, Copilot provides quick and convenient solutions. Therefore, it’s not a matter of one tool being universally better than the other; it’s about which tool is the best fit for your particular requirements.

In the next article, I’ll review the scenario of Security and Performance Checks and provide a comprehensive analysis. Stay tuned!