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Show HN: Void, an open-source Cursor/GitHub Copilot alternative

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Re: Show HN: Void, an open-source Cursor/GitHub Copilot alternative

#11

Post by hboon »

kkarpkkarp wrote: post #7
BoorishBears wrote: post #4

I'm surprised no one in targeting Jetbrains IDEs as seriously as Cursor has targeted vscode. I'd imagine Jetbrains users are much more willing to pay, and the non-AI intelligence Webstorm has baked in save me almost as much cognitive load as Cursor does if not more compared to base vscode. I tried Continue but it wasn't very smooth at all.

Supermaven[1] has addons for vscode as well for jetbrains (and neovim). And it is so good that I quickly decided for their paid plan [1] https://supermaven.com/

They have announced they are building an editor; so while I'm a subscriber, I'm not sure how long the plugins will last

Re: Show HN: Void, an open-source Cursor/GitHub Copilot alternative

#12

Post by boomskats »

Congrats on getting it this far! The fun is just beginning, but it does sound like you have an idea of what you're getting into. Here are some thoughts:

There are quite a few extensions and AI editors offering the snippet-like 'tab autocomplete', but Cursor are the only ones afaik who have nailed the full file no-look 'tab-tab-tab-tab autofix' workflow, with what I assume must be a combination of monaco/vscode hackery similar to what you're doing, and their own tuned model (i.e. not an off-the-shelf llm). Is this the piece you're going after when you say 'all of Cursor's core features', or are you primarily focused on something else?

On the topic of extensions, as an occasional user of Cursor I noticed that they've always been able to quite happily 'import' extensions you've already downloaded to a local VSCode profile, which makes sense, but they've occasionally struggled to use the same marketplace APIs for searching for extensions. I'm not sure what you're hoping for here, but I'd suggest you settle for that approach as a starting point. Also be conscious that you're dealing with Microsoft, so be mindful of things like their brand guidelines[0], and avoid telling the world that you're 'hacking away' at their APIs. These things may seem insignificant and it's true that they probably won't cause you a problem unless you're successful.

Lastly, assuming that you're hoping to recruit contributors (which I assume is some of the motivation behind this post): you really need to sanitise your Github workflow and your repo CI. Your commit history[1] currently seems to mostly consist of you updating your docs and committing straight to your main branch with no review process or checks, and the only commit I can see that does have any kind of check in place, your initial commit, has a failed monaco check that you seem to have subsequently just disabled. You'll need to tidy this up a _lot_ and establish a testing baseline if you want to successfully scale the project or attract the calibre of contributor you'll need to be successful.

Hope that helps, best of luck with the project!

[0]: https://code.visualstudio.com/brand [1]: https://github.com/voideditor/void/commits/main/

Re: Show HN: Void, an open-source Cursor/GitHub Copilot alternative

#13

Post by selcuka »

hansoolo wrote: post #10
BoorishBears wrote: post #4

I'm surprised no one in targeting Jetbrains IDEs as seriously as Cursor has targeted vscode. I'd imagine Jetbrains users are much more willing to pay, and the non-AI intelligence Webstorm has baked in save me almost as much cognitive load as Cursor does if not more compared to base vscode. I tried Continue but it wasn't very smooth at all.

AFAIK jetbrains has an AI Assistant now, too. But I cannot say anything about how it works.

It was sub-par when I last tried it, like many things JetBrains have been doing these days.

I love their products, and I would be sad if they can't stay competitive, but it looks like they are taking all the wrong turns.

Re: Show HN: Void, an open-source Cursor/GitHub Copilot alternative

#14

Post by thih9 »

prasoonds wrote: post #5

This is cool! I'm a regular user of Cursor (I barely write any code now - just prompt and tab tab tab). The thing that's really keeping me in Cursor (vs decamping for Zed) is NOT the Cmd K or the sidebar chat. It's actual Cursor's Tab autocomplete model. I've tried many other tab completion models and Cursor Tab blows them out of the water. Supermaven's new release is promising, however. For the use-case you're solvi…

Curious: what is your use case for cursor, i.e. what is the problem domain or complexity level (on a scale from boilerplate code to core architecture) that you typically work with? Also what plan are you on and is that enough for your needs?

Re: Show HN: Void, an open-source Cursor/GitHub Copilot alternative

#15

Post by kungfufrog »

BoorishBears wrote: post #4

I'm surprised no one in targeting Jetbrains IDEs as seriously as Cursor has targeted vscode. I'd imagine Jetbrains users are much more willing to pay, and the non-AI intelligence Webstorm has baked in save me almost as much cognitive load as Cursor does if not more compared to base vscode. I tried Continue but it wasn't very smooth at all.

I started paying for Sourcegraph's Cody AI because of how great the integration was in JetBrains IDEs!

Happy user for a few months now :)

Re: Show HN: Void, an open-source Cursor/GitHub Copilot alternative

#16

Post by boomskats »

prasoonds wrote: post #5

This is cool! I'm a regular user of Cursor (I barely write any code now - just prompt and tab tab tab). The thing that's really keeping me in Cursor (vs decamping for Zed) is NOT the Cmd K or the sidebar chat. It's actual Cursor's Tab autocomplete model. I've tried many other tab completion models and Cursor Tab blows them out of the water. Supermaven's new release is promising, however. For the use-case you're solvi…

Big fan of Codeium here. They're the only player who took vim/neovim users seriously from the start, and it's great to see people building extensions like monkoose/neocodeium. Their models or ux may not always be the best available, but their understanding of their target market and their product positioning is peak IMO, particularly the enterprise/on-prem options you mentioned. My money's on them long-term.

Re: Show HN: Void, an open-source Cursor/GitHub Copilot alternative

#18

Post by kevo1ution »

BoorishBears wrote: post #4

I'm surprised no one in targeting Jetbrains IDEs as seriously as Cursor has targeted vscode. I'd imagine Jetbrains users are much more willing to pay, and the non-AI intelligence Webstorm has baked in save me almost as much cognitive load as Cursor does if not more compared to base vscode. I tried Continue but it wasn't very smooth at all.

We're targeting android studio - https://firebender.com. I imagine its because Java Swing is actually extremely painful to work with and learn. Most developers interested in AI and the experience overlap with Sun Microsystem's Java Swing is not very large.

Re: Show HN: Void, an open-source Cursor/GitHub Copilot alternative

#19

Post by kevo1ution »

bilekas wrote: post #6
BoorishBears wrote: post #4

I'm surprised no one in targeting Jetbrains IDEs as seriously as Cursor has targeted vscode. I'd imagine Jetbrains users are much more willing to pay, and the non-AI intelligence Webstorm has baked in save me almost as much cognitive load as Cursor does if not more compared to base vscode. I tried Continue but it wasn't very smooth at all.

Jetbrains isn't open source and this seems to be a fork of vscode, not an extension so there's a bit more control on what's being done here. Edit : This is only my guess, I have no internal knowledge of Cursor.

Intellij community edition is open source, but not the enterprise version. However, CE is pretty feature rich with a ton of users and if you're targeting indie developers, most are on CE anyways. I'd say if you do Intellij, you have to be in for the long game to build up to enterprise, but its doable.

Re: Show HN: Void, an open-source Cursor/GitHub Copilot alternative

#20

Post by kevo1ution »

selcuka wrote: post #13
hansoolo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK jetbrains has an AI Assistant now, too. But I cannot say anything about how it works.

It was sub-par when I last tried it, like many things JetBrains have been doing these days. I love their products, and I would be sad if they can't stay competitive, but it looks like they are taking all the wrong turns.

you can try https://firebender.com. Its specifically designed for android studio, but still works well for intellij. I use it every day to develop the plugin itself.
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