How I Work With AIs, LLMs, Copilot, or Whatever You Want To Call It
I would assume most developers are using some kind of LLM to do their software development and I'm no different. It's really picked up over the last year and had a huge impact on how I work. I put this out here in hopes that it helps one of you refine your development process primarily. Secondarily, I want to start a conversation or two about how I can improve my process. So if you have any ideas on how I can improve my toolbox/toolkit, let me know!
I Am What I Am
My daily driver for programming is C#. I branch out from there to pick up any other needed skills/languages (i.e. SQL, Python, JavaScript, Vue.js, etc). I use Visual Studio but I don't use the built-in GitHub Copilot. I do sometimes for detailed work such as when I need a change made to a method or a selection in a class that is too big for it's pants. If you don't know what the 'S' in S.O.L.I.D. stands for, you better ask a senior developer/architect. If they don't know, they may not be the best influence on you and your programming. Single Responsibility, am I right?
For each git repo I'm working on, I use a single Windows Terminal running Powershell. This window is split into 2 panes. The left half runs GitHub Copilot CLI and the right is open to a command line at the root of the repository.
The Setup
The Left (GitHub Copilot CLI)
GitHub Copilot has a CLI (command line interface)?
Why yes, GitHub Copilot CLI does exist. It's pretty cool. Give it a shot.
What model are you using?
For the most part, I keep model selection on Auto. If I run into a scenario where I want to specifically use another model, I'll make the change. Auto gets me where I need to go most of the time. Looking at the list of models in GitHub Copilot CLI on this machine, I see there is a 10% discount if you use Auto. Good to know. If I had to pick, I like using the Claude models more than the GPT models. Whether or not I'm getting the correct answer to a prompt is the ultimate metric here.
What MCP servers are you using?
That's it? Nothing else?
Yep. That's it for now. I need to start playing around with some other MCP servers and see what benefits they can deliver. Do you have any suggestions? Let me know.
The Right (Powershell window)
I have posh-git installed. This provides me a quick heads up of the status of the repo. This window is primarily used to interact with the git repo (i.e. status/fetch/push/pull/checkout/commit/branch/rebase/etc.). It can also be used to run various ad-hoc commands from the command line directly in this pane. As long as my commits are on the smaller size (as in the number of files in the index) I don't mind doing commits here. Bigger commits I'll use Visual Studio's Git Changes window or sometimes GitHub Desktop depending on how I'm feeling about the work.
What kind of monitor setup are you using?
I primarily use a multi-monitor setup both at work and at home. If we are talking about 2 monitors, I'll put the Windows Terminal on the left and Visual Studio on the right. For 3, I'll usually put the Windows Terminal on the middle screen and then put Visual Studio on either the left or right side.
How many monitors do you need?
More and bigger. If the monitor gets too big, there are always tools to subdivide your monitor like snap layouts in Windows 11 or FancyZones in the Microsoft PowerToys.
What skills am I using?
Good question...that'll be answered in one of my next blog posts. See you then!