Intelligent code completion

Intelligent code completion is a context-aware code completion feature in some programming environments that speeds up the process of coding applications by reducing typos and other common mistakes. Attempts to do this are usually done through auto completion popups when typing, querying parameters of functions, query hints related to syntax errors, etc. Intelligent code completion and related tools serve as documentation and disambiguation for variable names, functions and methods using reflection.

Intelligent code completion appears in many program environments, an example implementation being Visual Studio's IntelliSense. The term was originally popularized as "picklist" and some implementations still refer to it as such.

Overview

Similar to other autocompletion systems, intelligent code completion is a convenient way to access descriptions of functions, particularly their parameter lists. It speeds up software development by reducing the amount of name memorization needed and keyboard input required. It also allows for less reference to external documentation as interactive documentation on many symbols (i.e. variables and functions) in the active scope appears dynamically in the form of tooltips while programming.