Generative AI has opened the floodgates to so many new innovations and AI tools. From AI image generation to AI coding assistants, there is so much to unpack, and we are still learning about new applications day after day. In this article, we’re going to specifically talk about AI coding tools that can help you with software development. You can use the AI coding tools listed below to generate code, fix bugs, explain code snippets, write unit tests, and much more. On that note, let’s go through the list.
1. CodeGPT
If you use VS Code extensively for programming, then you can take a look at CodeGPT. It’s a third-party extension developed by Daniel San for VS Code. You can add your own API key to access ChatGPT models, including GPT-4 in CodeGPT, and start using the extension in your codebase. it’s one of the best AI coding tools for developers.
You can ask CodeGPT any coding-related questions and it will answer your queries right away. In addition, you can generate code, select a code snippet and ask CodeGPT to explain the function, find problems and solutions, refactor the code, document it, and much more. You can also write unit tests for various functions.
It supports 16 programming languages and other than OpenAI’s ChatGPT models, you can also add API keys from other AI services such as Cohere, Anthropic, AI21 Labs, HuggingFace, etc. If you have not got access to Copilot X, you should very well check out CodeGPT.
2.Codey and Studio Bot by Google
In case you are unaware, Google has also entered the AI coding assistant fray with Codey and Studio Bot. You can use Codey, a coding AI assistant on Google Colab. It’s similar to GitHub Copilot X and offers in-line code suggestions, code generation, autocomplete, debugging, and much more. That said, the feature is not live for everyone yet and only users in the US can get the first access.
3. Replit Ghostwriter
Replit has also announced its AI coding tool named Ghostwriter. It’s backed by their in-house large language model, which is trained on publicly available code and further tuned by Replit. It supports code completion, code generation, transformation, enhancement, explanation, chat, debugging, and more. According to Replit, it factors in the context of your project and gives a relevant response. It can also automatically detect issues in your code and suggest a fix.
The best part is that Replit supports a growing list of 16 programming languages, including Bash, C, C#, C++, CSS, Go, JavaScript, Java, PHP, Perl, Python, Ruby, and more. You can dive into an unfamiliar codebase and get started with different frameworks, APIs, and languages using this tool.
4. Amazon CodeWhisperer
In the AI race, Amazon is not far behind and bringing powerful large language models for specific use cases. Amazon CodeWhisperer is a coding-specific LLM that can help you with programming in multiple languages. According to Amazon, CodeWhisperer has been trained on billions of lines of code, and it can generate in-line code similar to Copilot X. You can simply write a comment, and it can generate complete functions based on your existing code
It also has the ability to identify code that resembles open-source training code, allowing you to further tag the code and attribute it with a license. CodeWhisperer comes with built-in code security as well. It can scan and analyze your code to find vulnerabilities and loopholes so you can fix them immediately.
5. Google Bard
Google Bard is again a general-purpose AI chatbot, but it’s pretty good at coding, and with newer updates, it has gotten really better at programming. Google has built Google Bard on the PaLM 2 model, which is capable in different various programming languages. It also supports more than 20 programming languages, including C, C++, Python, C#, Javascript, and more.
You can also use Google Bard to translate code from one language to another. And with a new technique called Implicit Code Execution, Bard is able to run the code in the background to accurately show output. According to Google, the new technique improved Bard’s accuracy by 30% in computation-based prompts. Moreover, you can export the code directly in Google Colab and test the output. To sum up, Google Bard can prove to be one of the best coding AI tools, and you should definitely use it to your advantage.