Developing with the Help of the Codeium AI Assistant

Trying to write code, generate documentation, and find bugs using the free Codeium AI. It works as an IDE extension, supports all popular programming languages, and helps speed up development.

Introduction

Today, we will explore a free AI tool designed to make developers' lives easier. It helps write code in popular languages and detect errors in existing code. This tool is called Codeium.

How to Install Codeium

Codeium is available as an extension for various IDEs (such as PyCharm, PhpStorm, and others). You can find the extension here: codeium.com/download. We will demonstrate the installation process using the popular Microsoft VS Code editor.

Open the IDE, navigate to the Extensions section (Ctrl+Shift+X), and search for Codeium. The correct extension should have over 1 million downloads. Click on Install. During the process, allow the authorization page to open and create an account.

Writing Python Code

Let's ask the AI to generate a function in one of the most popular languages — Python. Press Ctrl + I and enter a request for the AI. If the generated code is satisfactory, confirm it by pressing Alt + A to insert it into the project.

You can also request improvements to the code by pressing Alt + F. For example, the AI initially generated a correct function but omitted the necessary library imports. After refining the request, we received a more precise result.

Fixing Errors in Code

Now, let's see how the AI handles debugging. We will intentionally introduce an error and use a command to fix it. The AI quickly identifies the issue, but instead of modifying the erroneous code, it adds the corrected line above it. This suggests that clearer request formulation might yield better results.

Generating Documentation

Finally, let's generate documentation for our function. This could be useful if someone else (or even an AI) needs to work with the code in the future. Click on the Generate Docstring button and wait a few seconds.

Conclusion

Given that even the free version of Codeium has no request limits, it's a valuable tool worth adding to the developer's toolkit.

Of course, AI alone won't handle large-scale projects, and it won’t enable coding without understanding programming. However, tools like this are excellent for speeding up work and debugging.