Windsurf probably sees this as a win. I still think they're behind in some areas, Cursor's Agent feels faster and more responsive but Windsurf nails the rest. The documentation is far better, and the overall developer experience is more solid. Cursor still feels like a hacked-on plug-in in a broken VS Code fork. Even small touches, like built-in Linux install instructions, show Windsurf's polish.
> Its the little things like having baked in instructions to install Windsurf on linux. When I went to download Cursor the other day I noticed that they do not offer any .deb/.rpm packages and just offer the FlatPak (could be a Snap I'm not sure). This just tells me they really dont understand the community and just wanted to ship something for Linux and be done with it.
OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B
101–110 of 604 posts
Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Copilot owns the platform, had an amazing head start and yet still is the worst option available. I don’t mean to be harsh but this was a titanic fumble.
GitHub has been failing upward for more than 5 years. They could have totally dominated software development and security - failed. Could have been the undisputed champion of code hosting - failed. Should have dominated development co-pilots - failed. I actually find it a little reassuring that they can't seem to get out of their own way.
Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B
#103Windsurf and Cursor feel like temporary stopgaps, products of a narrow window in time before the landscape shifts again. Microsoft has clearly taken notice. They're already starting to lock down the upstream VSCode codebase, as seen with recent changes to the C/C++ extension [0]. It's not hard to imagine that future features like TypeScript 7.0 might be limited or even withheld from forks entirely. At the same time,…
Wow, folks almost had me convinced MS turned a new leaf 5 years ago. Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme: embrace, extend, extinguish.
Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B
#104Recent announcements from OpenAI seem to indicate they know they're losing the race
They have certainly lost the monopoly.
Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B
#105Windsurf and Cursor feel like temporary stopgaps, products of a narrow window in time before the landscape shifts again. Microsoft has clearly taken notice. They're already starting to lock down the upstream VSCode codebase, as seen with recent changes to the C/C++ extension [0]. It's not hard to imagine that future features like TypeScript 7.0 might be limited or even withheld from forks entirely. At the same time,…
> At the same time, Microsoft will likely replicate Windsurf and Cursor's features within a year. And deliver them with far greater stability and polish. I agree with the first part, I'm much less optimistic about the second part. I suspect they will create something that is worse, but cheaper if you already pay for Github/Office 365/whatever. Then many large enterprises will switch to save money whilst the engineers…
Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> At the same time, Microsoft will likely replicate Windsurf and Cursor's features within a year. And deliver them with far greater stability and polish. I agree with the first part, I'm much less optimistic about the second part. I suspect they will create something that is worse, but cheaper if you already pay for Github/Office 365/whatever. Then many large enterprises will switch to save money whilst the engineers…
If the VS Code team are delivering the product, I have some amount of trust. If it’s the VS team, good luck to everyone involved
Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B
#107Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B
#108IDEs can support "AI coding agents" on their own.
The entire workflow for "AI coding agents" boils down to:
1. You write a prompt
2. The "agent" wraps it in a system prompt and sends it to the LLM
3. The LLM sends back a response
4. The agent performs specific actions based on that response (editing files, creating new ones, etc.)
Microsoft already started doing that with Copilot. And they have a vibrant ecosystem of VS Code extensions (I maintain one of them [1])
"AI agents" should be a feature, not a separate piece of software (IDE) that's integral to software devs.
Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B
#109Windsurf and Cursor feel like temporary stopgaps, products of a narrow window in time before the landscape shifts again. Microsoft has clearly taken notice. They're already starting to lock down the upstream VSCode codebase, as seen with recent changes to the C/C++ extension [0]. It's not hard to imagine that future features like TypeScript 7.0 might be limited or even withheld from forks entirely. At the same time,…
Cursor ($9 bil) has a higher valuation than JetBrains ($7 bil). Think about that.
Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B
#110Windsurf and Cursor feel like temporary stopgaps, products of a narrow window in time before the landscape shifts again. Microsoft has clearly taken notice. They're already starting to lock down the upstream VSCode codebase, as seen with recent changes to the C/C++ extension [0]. It's not hard to imagine that future features like TypeScript 7.0 might be limited or even withheld from forks entirely. At the same time,…
I completely disagree and feel MS would never do it. Not a MS Employee, but they have moved on from such battles. They should have restricted the Marketplace several years ago, however, they are doing it now. With C++, they are part of MFC's, they are the legal owners, not like Google vs Oracle in case of Java. Lastly, with AI Code IDEs I think yes, there is a case, the need for IDE might be very less. Like a steerin…