Hey You

I love playing around with Copilot for Github in Visual Studio Code. I have a lot of projects running but sometimes I like to play around… I like to try new things… and sometimes I just mess with it just to see what kind of stupidity I can get out of Copilot.

However, everytime I do play around, or work with serious projects, Copilot doesn’t always does what I ask it to do. So… today I will bring you on a journey of a typical project that I’ll be working on and I’ll show you how irritating sometimes it can be. 

Spoiler alert: In the end it drove me crazy.

What is this project you might ask?

Text to ASCII generator

I got something cool I want you to do… create me a html page that can create ASCII art from a text box.

I do not want to tell in detail what I want. I prefer Copilot to be the programmer and just come up with… whatever it likes to do. 

Well, this sounds promising. I didn’t want to look into the code because I don’t want to interfere with what it does. This will be a surprise for you as well for me.

So… how is the result?

Hot diggity damn 

That… actually looks pretty good. I didn’t ask it to design it this way and to be honest, it’s pretty user friendly. 

1 issue though. It doesn’t work. Let’s go to the prompt.

Looks awesome. See screenshot. Thanks! However… it’s not working. When I create on “Render ASCII” it does nothing. Maybe a missing JS file (hint hint hint)

It should be click and not create. What I really like is that I can send it screenshots and it will recognize everything in the screenshot.

So… you say it’s fixed? I doubt it because I still see only 1 file. index.html. 

But… let’s see.

ok, euhm… still not working… maybe… we can make it modular for troubleshooting? would that be a good idea? have a seperate CS file and a seperate JS file? I don’t know…

So, here’s me giving more hints and actually telling the damn thing to use a CS file and a JS file. Doing everything in a single file is stupid so why do it?

interesting…

Awesome. It made a style.css and a script.js. That sounds promising right?

The output box gives me the following error: Cloud not render: Figlet library not loaded

This was actually the first red flag. I didn’t notice it yet but it’s using an external source to download fonts. The FIGlet library.

It says it’s fixed but is it really? Here’s where I woke up and said to myself

CDN? CDN? Why are you adding a CDN for something that should be local

But… does it work?

Nope… and I got a little big angry this time.

excuse me? Are you using … external sources? NO NO NO! This should be local… I should not depend on external services. If a JS file is needed… you should create it.

I don’t like being depended on other services. If I (Copilot) can create offline services, I would do that.

Everything locally… But… does it work?

IT’S ALIVE!!! ALIVE!!! But… the fonts are not… well… they look ugly. We need monospaced fonts like Courier… or whatever Powershell uses… You know… where all characters are identical?

I don’t know man… it still doesn’t show the art properly… maybe the output screen isn’t formatted to show ASCII ART well… (hint hint hint)

is this te best you could do? It looks like we’re stuck in a loop. The output just not as satisfying as I woult like it to be. Come on… you can do better… I believe in you!!!

Here’s where I got angry. The green monster in me ripped my pants and I smashed everything while screaming ENGIN SMASH!

I am SO dissapointed right now. In my anger I deleted EVERYTHING! We’re going to start from scratch. Create an HTML page that will create ASCII art from a textbox. I want at least 3 fronts, a copy mechanisme, the output should be UNDER not next to it like you did it in the previous version. Make it modular. Do your best.

And… this time… I think it actually listened.

If you want to try it out for yourself, click here

We are living in an AI bubble right now. Yes, it is true that a lot of jobs already have been replaced by AI and it will not stop replacing. 

However, In order to replace creatives with AI, clients will need to accurately describe what they want.

This article reminded me of this meme:

Thanks for reading.

Cheers,

Engin