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Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?

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Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?

#331

Post by dexterlagan »

osigurdson wrote: post #257
dexterlagan wrote: post #254

You need none of these fancy tools if you iterate over specs instead of iterating over code. I explain it all in here: https://www.cleverthinkingsoftware.com/spec-first-developmen...

I think a series of specs as the system instruction could help guide it. You can't just go from spec to app though, at least in my experience.

From my experience Claude 3.7 seems to make less mistakes when you provide detailed specs. It saves a lot of back and forth, especially at the beginning, when you're trying to 'de-noise' the idea. I find that the best way is using a hybrid approach: going between iterating over specs to iterating over code, and once I have the MVP I update the specs one last time. I pass these specs to another session and continue working. It solves multiple problems at once: context getting full, LLM getting lost etc.

Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?

#333

Post by TiredOfLife »

ksymph wrote: post #289

I've been flipping between the two, and overall I've found Cursor to be the better experience. Its autocomplete feels better at 'looking ahead' and figuring out what I might be doing next, while Windsurf tends to focus more on repeating whatever I've done recently. Also, while Windsurf has more project awareness, and it's better at integrating things across files, actually trying to get it to read enough context to d…

Windsurf autocomplete is free.

Cursor autocomplete stops working after trial ends.

Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?

#334

Post by [deleted] »

mikrotikker wrote: post #248
emseetech wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I can, I map it to ctrl-; so I can bring it up when I need it. But I found once it was optional I hardly ever used it. I use Deepseek or others as a conversation partner or rubber duck, but I'm perfectly happy writing all my code myself. Maybe this approach needs a trendy name to counter the "vibe coding" hype.

"rubber botting"

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?

#335

Post by drcongo »

drcongo wrote: post #249
bilekas wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes very observant, modified forks with their agents built in. Zed does not have any built in, sublime does not have agents built in but if you like you can continue this disingenuous discussion.

Thank you for your kind offer, I shall take you up on it. Zed does have it built in. Now, please continue your disingenuous conversation by repeatedly claiming something that is demonstrably not true.

Hello? You're not going to continue?

Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?

#336

Post by evolve2k »

pembrook wrote: post #51

For a time windsurf was way ahead of cursor in full agentic coding, but now I hear cursor has caught up. I have yet to switch back to try out cursor again but starting to get frustrated with Windsurf being restricted to gathering context only 100-200 lines at a time. So many of the bugs and poor results that it can introduce are simply due to improper context. When forcibly giving it the necessary context you can cle…

Wait, are these 800 lines of code? Am I the only one seeing that as a major code smell? Assuming these are code files, the issue is not AI processing power but rather bread and butter coding practices related to file organisation and modularisation.

Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?

#337

Post by fragmede »

ayewo wrote: post #96
movq wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The (relative) simplicity is what sells aider for me (it also helps that I use neovim in tmux). It was easy to figure out exactly what it's sending to the LLM, and I like that it does one thing at a time. I want to babysit my LLMs and those "agentic" tools that go off and do dozens of things in a loop make me feel out of control.

I like your framing about “feeling out of control”. For the occasional frontend task, I don’t mind being out of control when using agentic tools. I guess this is the origin of Karpathy’s vibe coding moniker: you surrender to the LLM’s coding decisions. For backend tasks, which is my bread and butter, I certainly want to know what it’s sending to the LLM so it’s just easier to use the chat interface directly. This way…

How do get you out the "good bits" without a diff/patch file? or do you ask the LLM for that and apply it manually?

Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?

#339

Post by kypro »

evolve2k wrote: post #336
pembrook wrote: post #51

For a time windsurf was way ahead of cursor in full agentic coding, but now I hear cursor has caught up. I have yet to switch back to try out cursor again but starting to get frustrated with Windsurf being restricted to gathering context only 100-200 lines at a time. So many of the bugs and poor results that it can introduce are simply due to improper context. When forcibly giving it the necessary context you can cle…

Wait, are these 800 lines of code? Am I the only one seeing that as a major code smell? Assuming these are code files, the issue is not AI processing power but rather bread and butter coding practices related to file organisation and modularisation.

I agree, but I've worked with many people now who seem to prefer one massive file. Specifically Python and React people seem to do this a lot.

Frustrates the hell out of me as someone who thinks at 300-400 lines generally you should start looking at breaking things up.

Re: Ask HN: Cursor or Windsurf?

#340

Post by bilekas »

drcongo wrote: post #335
drcongo wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your kind offer, I shall take you up on it. Zed does have it built in. Now, please continue your disingenuous conversation by repeatedly claiming something that is demonstrably not true.

Hello? You're not going to continue?

Nah, I can see a losing argument when I see one. In my eyes, the OP was asking about the LLM/AI side and not the editor. But okay, zed now has one built in. I know now.
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