One Feature, Two Timelines: Flying Solo or with an AI Copilot

Two years ago, I worked on a visually challenging feature in an Android project. This feature involved a wide variety of animations, a custom collision detection algorithm, and the need to maintain acceptable performance across a wide range of devices. The development process was bumpy and quite long — and ultimately costly for the project. But what if I hadn’t been alone with Android Studio? How much time and effort could I have saved with a Copilot by my side? This talk isn’t about promoting or rejecting AI tools. It’s a side-by-side comparison between the actual development of a real-world feature, and what it could have been like with a bit of AI assistance. I’ll walk you through the original implementation: the technical challenges, the decisions made, and the time it took. Then, I’ll rebuild a similar feature using AI tools like GitHub Copilot — highlighting the pros, the cons, and whether it’s worth the hype. Let’s face the changes AI is bringing to our daily work, and explore where — and how — it could actually be useful, through this hands-on case study.

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  Sandra Dupré DNA.inc Android Developer