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Copilot Can't Beat a 2013 'TouchDevelop' Code Generation Demo for Windows Phone


What happens when you ask Copilot to "write a program that can be run on an iPhone 16 to select 15 random photos from the phone, tint them to random colors, and display the photos on the phone"? That's what TouchDevelop did for the long-discontinued Windows Phone in a 2013 Microsoft Research 'Smar...

What happens when you ask Copilot to "write a program that can be run on an iPhone 16 to select 15 random photos from the phone, tint them to random colors, and display the photos on the phone"?Long-time Slashdot reader theodp reports on what happens when, 14 years later, you pose the same question to Copilot:" You'll get lots of code and caveats from Copilot, but nothing that you can execute as is. theodp also reminds us that TouchDevelop "was ( like BASIC) abandoned by Microsoft..." Interestingly, a Microsoft Research video from CS Education Week 2011 shows enthusiastic Washington high school students participating in an hour-long TouchDevelop coding lesson and demonstrating the apps they created that tapped into music, photos, the Internet, and yes, even their phone's functionality. (When asked, Copilot replied that Apple's Shortcuts app wasn't up to the task).

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