polyclip-go VS triangulate

polyclip-go: https://github.com/akavel/polyclip-go

I can give you an example of an entire (well, I still consider it alpha) library I wrote several months ago, using Copilot: https://github.com/osuushi/triangulate

This is an implementation of a 1991 paper on polygon triangulation into Go. So the deepest thinking about how to solve the problem was obviously already done for me, but there were a number of edge cases that I had to invent my own solutions to, and the translation itself involved keeping a lot of context in my head.

I can’t tell you in precise detail what Copilot did, and what I wrote by hand. I wasn’t taking notes or recording my screen. But there’s a reason you don’t see a lot of blocks in there where I forgot to comment anything, because my entire process for this was “type what I want to do in English, and see if Copilot will generate the next snippet, or something close”. I didn’t do this out of bloodyminded dedication to the AI cause, but because it continued to be an extremely effective way to get the code written quickly.

I can give a few specifics:

- My linear algebra is rusty, and Copilot was extremely helpful here. I would often just type the basic thing I was trying to do in pretty vague linear algebra terms, and it would generate the formula.