The Best AI Coding Assistant Out There (why Tabnine is leading the pack)

In today's world, being a software developer and AI go hand-in-hand. Every day, we are bombarded with all the latest tools that are leveraging AI to make your life easier. None, however, are as important to developers as an AI coding assistant.

The right assistant can help take you from an average developer to a 10X developer. Over the last several months, I've been tinkering with all of the AI coding assistants out there and I've landed on my decision of which assistant will be my daily driver.

It's ​Tabnine​ and I'll explain why.

Let’s dive in.

What is an AI coding assistant?

In case you're a developer who is very late to the party, it's worth breaking down what an AI coding assistant is.

Much like the name suggests, it's a coding assistant that leverages AI and machine learning models that have been trained on vast datasets of code to help you become a better developer. These datasets generally include public and open-source projects.

This intensive training allows a coding assistant to predict what a developer might write next and suggest relevant code completions or corrections.

These assistants typically integrate directly into your IDE (integrated development environment) and make suggestions in real-time as you're typing your code. I like to think of it as a "code autocomplete", much like a message autocomplete that all of our phones have these days. This helps provide a seamless experience and ensures that your assistant is always available.

What features do we expect an AI coding assistant to have?

Considering how quickly we've all integrated into our daily lives, both on a personal and professional level, it's worth exploring what features make for a good AI coding assistant.

Beyond having an easy integration into various IDEs so that accessibility is simplest, there are several other key features to expect when using an AI coding assistant.

• Code completion - Assistants need to be able to make intelligent predictions based on the current file of work as well as provide support, regardless of what language you’re coding in
• Code refactoring - Assistants should be able to provide simplifications of complex code without altering the code's functionality as well as optimizing the code where possible
• Error detection and correction - Assistants should be able to detect errors in the code, logical or otherwise, in real-time
• Documentation assistance - Assistants should always be able to generate documentation for any written code as well as creating meaningful comments where necessary
• Natural Language Processing (NLP) - Assistants need to be able to generate code from natural language comments or descriptions which can help bridge the gap between human language and code

If all of the above hasn't blown your mind already, then prepare yourself for everything that Tabnine can do, over and above the standard features.

Tabnine offers extreme personalisation

What I truly love about Tabnine is its ability to learn from your code and adapt to your unique coding style. This ensures that suggestions and completions that are offered by Tabnine feel natural and seamless, and not some Frankenstein's monster of your code mixed with generated code that was brought in from another project that the AI was trained on.

Over time, Tabnine becomes more attuned to your preferences, project-specific patterns, and even the nuances of your team's coding standards. This makes Tabnine feel more like an extra team member than just an AI coding assistant.

Your entire project in accessible

If you've spent time with other assistants, you'll know that they are all great at what they do, but they can only focus on the current file or highlighted text. While this is still ridiculously powerful, it means that you're still needing to be aware of what specific input to provide in order to get your output.

Tabnine takes this a step further and ensures that it understands your entire project, so that it can give you recommendations that include all the project files instead of just your current selection.

This saves time, increases consistency across the project and ensures that no context is not being factored in when writing a piece of code.

Tabnine remains private and protected

Data privacy is paramount in today's world. What most people don't know is that other AI assistants share your code or the suggestions that are made for your code with its servers. This means that your code doesn't truly remain yours.

Tabnine solves this by never sending any part of your code to external servers for processing which ensures that your intellectual property is safe.

That's it for this week.

If you're not using an AI coding assistant yet, then step one is to start. If you are already using a coding assistant, then you may have faced frustrations around the restriction of only having the current file as input or else worrying about your code being shared.

For both of these scenarios, Tabnine is the answer for you.

See you again next week.

​

Whenever you’re ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. Join me on LinkedIn and engage with me directly (52 000+ followers)
2. Get a FREE copy of my book 101 Tips For Becoming A Better Developer (3 500+ downloads)
3. Reach out to Origen Software for us to solve your problems (for founders and start-ups)