The routine software development workflow is demanding. From solving complex and business-critical problems to coding the solution and then fixing bugs that arise during the process, it can be tedious for developers sometimes. Developers spend countless hours on issues they can otherwise solve in way less time. This issue is due to insufficient workflow tooling.

Even though AI is no longer a new word to both active and passive participants in the technology space, many people do not fully understand how much the technology can streamline our day-to-day activities.

Other than intelligently competing with you in your favorite video game or responding to your queries via Siri or Alexa, artificial intelligence can be impactful in software development.

AI efficiently streamlines the development process by autocompleting code blocks, highlighting possible typos, or comprehensively explaining the function of every code block. It allows for a less buggy and more efficient workflow. A workflow where developers can finish more projects faster while maintaining code quality.

Here is a list of some of the best AI-powered coding tools to help reduce repetitive coding and quickly figure out bugs. These tools significantly improve individual and team productivity, thereby leading to faster shipping of software solutions.

GitHub Copilot⌗

In 2021, GitHub announced its AI-assisted pair-coding tool, GitHub Copilot. To date, the tool is generating traction among programmers both on social media and offline. The open-source tool based on a derivative of OpenAI’s GPT-3 model boasts of assisting programmers in writing efficient codes faster by providing code suggestions to complete lines of code and whole functions.

It allows you to choose from blocks or functions that complete your code and edit it to suit your style. As you use the tool, GitHub Copilot adapts to your coding style to provide suggestions and code recommendations.

GitHub Copilot supports a diverse set of programming languages and frameworks. These include Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, Ruby, Golang, and C++.

It integrates with various development environments, including VS Code and JetBrains.

GitHub Copilot license is currently only available to individual users. It costs $10 per month or $100 per year.

Tabnine⌗

Tabnine’s AI-backed code autocompletion functionality significantly improves the coding experience. It does this by leveraging an advanced public code model and precision algorithm to give relevant and efficient AI-based code suggestions. The ability to train the model over specific codebases gives it an edge over similar tools like the GitHub Copilot.

Tabnine is a full-blown code completion tool that adapts to code patterns, styles, and preferences. This enables it to provide personalized code suggestions on an enterprise scale.

Tabnine helps teams adapt to a consistent coding style by suggesting code based on previous techniques, thereby easing the onboarding process of new developers. It also assists programmers in reducing errors by offering best coding practices, and it works offline once you install the integration.

With an acclaimed user base of over 1 million developers, Tabnine supports over 20 major programming languages. It integrates with 15 code editors, including IntelliJ, VS Code, Android Studio, and Vim.

Tabnine offers a free, basic code completion version. But, the full, advanced version is offered at $12 per user per month.

Denigma⌗

If you’ve faced a problem onboarding a new developer to your team, you know how uneasy the process can be. Or, as a new developer or product manager in a software development team, going through poorly written code documentation can be a painful procedure.

With Denigma, you don’t need to go through the stress of explaining your codebase to every new developer. Powered by artificial intelligence, Denigma is a coding assistant that processes your code and provides a scope-based big picture of precisely what it does. Even though it is turned off by default, Denigma is able to offer a line-by-line explanation of the code.

It focuses on the essential logic of a codebase, allowing you to have an overview of how the business works.

Integrating Denigma into your workflow will make it easy for junior professionals and interns to understand your codebase and quickly begin contributing to projects efficiently. It does this by helping them build a subjective understanding of the goals of the code.

Denigma is an excellent tool for beginners and experienced developers, product owners, and product managers, allowing them to swiftly onboard new developers, product managers, or QA engineers to continue developing and managing their projects.

With an astonishing level of accuracy on common code structures, Denigma allows you to spend less time reading and more time understanding.

You can try out Denigma for free in your browser or download the VS Code extension. The free tier offers a limited number of explanations, and the paid plan costs just $5 per month.

Integration with IntelliJ and Google Chrome will be available soon.

AlphaCode⌗

More than just an AI-based code completion tool, AlphaCode is a fully-fledged problem-solving system that leverages artificial intelligence and natural language processing to solve high-level programming tasks.

AlphaCode takes the description of a task in natural language and implements it by writing a line-by-line code solution for the described situation. The tool is built for and tested in competitive programming by enabling programmers to define complex and abstract mathematical problems in natural human language, then outputting a solution that comprehensively addresses the issue.

Ponicode⌗

Ponicode is one of the top ai-powered coding tools that assist programmers in flawlessly delivering solutions faster while maintaining high code quality and efficiency. Ponicode prides itself in building defect-free software by harnessing the power of its well-trained artificial intelligence model to run unit tests at scale, provide advanced suggestions and help create robust solutions. It is a business-grade software that works with widely used programming languages like Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, and Java.

Ponicode offers a free plan and an advanced enterprise-grade solution starting from €15,000 monthly.

CodeQuestion⌗

As they say, every developer is a friend of Stack Overflow. Since Stack Overflow is, unofficially, a crucial tool to the developer’s workflow, why not have it in a more integrated manner than opening a browser tab all the time? That’s what CodeQuestion does.

CodeQuestion is a coding assistant that integrates seamlessly into the developer workflow for faster and more productive development, enabling you to ask all your Stack Overflow questions directly from the development environment. It is an open-source Python tool pre-trained using data from Stack Exchange. Once installed, CodeQuestion does not require the internet to run the query string across similar queries and provide relevant references from the terminal.

Kite⌗

Yet another AI-powered coding tool, Kite, offers a solution that is trained over millions of data and provides line-by-line and multi-line code suggestions on the go. It lets you code faster by reducing the number of keystrokes you press when coding by as much as 47%. In addition to the code completion feature, Kite provides quick code lookups and docs when writing Python.

Kite provides integration with 16 code editors and programming languages like Ruby, Java, and Python. Sublime text, PyCharm, Jupyter notebook, and Vim are some of the IDEs it supports.

Kite used to offer a Pro version, but it is no longer available for purchase. You can use the tool for free.

Quod AI⌗

Quod AI is, basically, a code search engine. Instead of scrolling all through Google and Stack Overflow or having to reinvent the wheel, Quod AI makes it much faster to find code solutions. Using its AI model, Quod AI runs your search query through all your repositories or selected repositories on platforms like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket.

You can search using keywords, exact code, or semantics, and Quod AI will return the most relevant code block to your search query.

Quod AI offers a limited, free plan. The Teams plan costs $2,000 per month, allowing up to 100 members.

CodeT5⌗

CodeT5 is a multifunctional code-aware programming model from Salesforce research. Based on Google’s Text-to-Text Transfer Transformer (T5), CodeT5 uses an encoder-decoder model trained over 8.35 million code instances from public GitHub repositories. Much of the training dataset comes from widely used programming languages like Go, PHP, JavaScript, Python, C, and C#.

CodeT5 offers 3 significant types of coding assistance:

  • Text to code generation – It generates codes by processing natural language descriptions.
  • Code autocompletion – It automatically completes code blocks with the most relevant code based on the target function.
  • Code summarization – It summarizes the role of each code block in natural language.

It is an open-source model that you can download by following the process on the project’s GitHub repository.

aiXcoder⌗

Intelligent code completion, code search, and code learning are some features offered by aiXcoder. This AI-driven pair programming tool allows programmers to work more efficiently by defining programming solutions in natural language and outputting the code.

By seamlessly integrating a custom search bar in your development environment, aiXcoder also allows you to search open-source code on GitHub easily. At the same time, it uses its deep learning technology to filter search results and return only the most relevant ones.

It is an enterprise-level tool that you can deploy privately. It also works offline to keep your code safe on your local computer.

Conclusion⌗

Efficiency, speed, and effectiveness are at the heart of software development workflow. However, with poor tooling, you cannot achieve these values. It is imperative to integrate automation into software development as much as possible. Using some of the AI-powered tools highlighted above will assist in ensuring that you stay productive, save time, and deliver solutions faster.

Simplify Code Understanding With Denigma⌗

Denigma is a code explainer that uses artificial intelligence to explain code blocks in plain English. Whether you’re going through a code you’ve written in a long time, reading a new codebase, or fixing a bug, Denigma helps you through the process by providing a quick overview of what the code does in understandable English. It saves you time and accelerates development by providing insight into new and familiar codebases.

Are you a Project manager, developer, QA engineer, or intern in any software development field? Denigma serves you just right!

Try Denigma for free to experience what we’re on about!