Intelligent code completion

Intelligent code completion is a context-cognizant feature found in many programming environments, helping developers write code by offering auto-complete suggestions and reducing typos or other common mistakes. Intelligent code completion can also be used to explore application programming interfaces (APIs). Auto-complete suggestions are widely used across integrated development environments (IDEs) by both new and experienced developers. The most common form of code completion is a pop-up menu showing possible functions and methods based on what the developer has begun typing. While traditional code completion systems propose all type-correct methods, more intelligent systems reduce the list of proposed methods to more relevant items based on context. Multiple evaluation methodologies based on contextual information have been implemented to improve the prediction quality code completion suggestions.

Examples of software with intelligent code completion features include the following:

• Visual Studio Code IntelliSense for languages including JavaScript, TypeScript, JSON, HTML, CSS, SCSS, and more
• GitHub Copilot, an open-source tool with code completion for a large collection of languages and frameworks, including Python, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Ruby, and Go
• Tabnine, an all-language code completion assistant that learns the patterns and preferences of a development team to improve its suggestions.
• PyCharm, Python-specific IDE with intelligent code completion.