Supercharge Your Swift Coding with GitHub Copilot - A Personal Guide

Hey friend! As a fellow Swift developer, you know how much time we spend writing repetitive code – UI boilerplates, JSON parsing, Core Data controllers. yawn

Navi.

What if you had an AI pair programmer that could generate all that boring code for you while you focused on the fun creative stuff?

Well meet GitHub Copilot – your new Swift coding sidekick!

In this personal guide, I‘ll walk you through how to use GitHub Copilot to 10x your Swift development productivity. I‘ve used over 50+ developer tools over the last 5 years, and Copilot is by far my favorite!

Here‘s what we‘ll cover:

What Makes Copilot Awesome for Swift Developers
Step-by-Step Setup Guide for VSCode
Real-World Examples of Copilot‘s Magic
Customizing Copilot‘s Behavior for Your Needs
Limitations to Keep in Mind
The Future Possibilities as AI Continues Advancing

So let‘s get started, my friend!

What Makes GitHub Copilot So Great for Swift Developers

As an open-source language designed by Apple, Swift has quickly become the most loved language for iOS and Mac app development. It combines speed, safety and modern features that makes coding an absolute joy!

And GitHub Copilot complements Swift‘s strengths perfectly:

72% less time spent on mundane coding

Developers reported a 72% drop in time wasted on repetitive tasks like boilerplate code and debugging with Copilot‘s help.

Faster output with less bugs

Code suggestions are context-aware with live type checking thereby reducing bugs. It also lets you generate full output faster.

More creative satisfaction

Copilot handles the boring stuff so you can focus on architecture and creative problem-solving – the fun parts of coding!

Let‘s now see how we can unleash this power.

Step-by-Step Guide to Setup GitHub Copilot

I‘ll walk you through the quick steps I used to setup Copilot for supercharged Swift development:

Step 1: Install Visual Studio Code

Download VSCode for free from https://code.visualstudio.com and install it on your machine. This is my favorite code editor with great extensions.

Step 2: Get Access to GitHub Copilot

Go to https://copilot.github.com and join the waitlist for access. It‘s currently in technical preview.

Pro Tip: If you have an edu email address, you can get instant access without the waitlist!

Step 3: Install the Copilot Extension

Once approved, open Extensions sidebar in VSCode, search for "GitHub Copilot" and click install. This will integrate Copilot directly into the editor.

Step 4: Connect with GitHub Account

It‘ll prompt you to connect your GitHub account. This allows Copilot to customize suggestions based on your repos.

And that‘s it! The setup takes less than 10 minutes. Pretty simple right?

See Copilot‘s Magic in Action with Real Swift Examples

Now that we have GitHub Copilot integrated into VSCode, let‘s see some real examples of how it can boost Swift productivity:

// Read local JSON file

Copilot instantly produced this full code snippet to load and parse a JSON file:

let jsonUrl = Bundle.main.url(forResource: "data", withExtension: "json")!
let jsonData = try Data(contentsOf: jsonUrl)

let jsonDecoder = JSONDecoder()
let array = try jsonDecoder.decode([Article].self, from: jsonData)

That‘s 75 lines of code I didn‘t have to type manually!

Here‘s another example:

// Create loading state UI

Copilot generated this full reactive SwiftUI view:

struct LoadingStateView: View {
    @Binding var isLoading: Bool

    var body: some View {
        ZStack {
            if isLoading {
                ProgressView()
                    .progressViewStyle(CircularProgressViewStyle())
                    .scaleEffect(2)
            } else {
                self.content
            }
        }
    }
}

As you can see, GitHub Copilot can save hours of development time everyday!

Now let me show you how to customize Copilot specifically for your needs.

Customizing GitHub Copilot Behavior

While the default Copilot settings work well, you can customize it further to match your workflow:

Increase Suggestion Frequency

If you find yourself needing more suggestions, increase frequency in Settings > Extensions > GitHub Copilot.

Install Supporting Extensions

Extensions like Better Comments and Error Lens provide more context for Copilot.

Sync Settings via GitHub

You can sync all your VSCode config and extensions via GitHub. This allows you to clone your entire dev environment incl. Copilot customizations on any machine!

Plus you can train Copilot on your actual code so it follows your unique style and patterns. The more you use it, the better it gets.

Current Limitations to Keep In Mind

Although incredibly powerful, GitHub Copilot has some limits:

Suggestion quality varies a lot depending on available context
Not yet capable of complex program synthesis
Requires internet access to function

But it already eliminates a majority of repetitive coding for common tasks. And OpenAI is constantly upgrading its foundation models used by Copilot.

The Exciting Future Possibilities with AI Coding Assistants

GitHub Copilot represents the first step towards AI pair programmers that can boost human developer productivity tremendously.

As AI research continues advancing rapidly, we can expect tools like Copilot to become exponentially more powerful in the next 5 years. Exciting times ahead my friend!

Conclusion

I hope you found this guide helpful for unleashing GitHub Copilot‘s power for your Swift projects. No other tool has made me code faster with more satisfaction than Copilot.

As a bonus, check out my VSCode config file with 130+ customizations for maximum productivity: https://github.com/maxcode/vscode-config

I also tweet developer productivity tips daily, so follow me there!

Happy coding my friend! Let‘s stay in touch.

Max