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GitHub Copilot–We still need the human in the loop

I picked up a bug today where we got a NullReferenceException. I thought this was a good scenario where I could ask GitHub Copilot to find and fix the issue for me.

Here is the orignal code containing the issue:

I asked Copilot to investigate and fix the issue using the /fix slash command;

/fix This code returns a NullReferenceException in some situations. Can you investigate an issue and suggest a solution?

GitHub Copilot was successful in identifying the root cause of the problem. I was passing a ConnectionName using a different casing as the key found in the dictionary (e.g. Northwind vs northwind).

That’s good.

However then I noticed the solution it suggested:

Although that is a workable solution that certainly fixes the issue, it is certainly not the simplest and most performant solution. I undid the changes done by Copilot and updated the Dictionary construction instead:

The human in the loop is still required...

More information

Tips & Tricks for GitHub Copilot Chat in Visual Studio - Visual Studio (Windows) | Microsoft Learn

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