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OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

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Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the fact that OpenAI, at the bleeding edge of it all, has decided to buy an IDE is a rather strong hint that the future of agents handling entire engineering tickets might be further out than many believe. If autonomous agents were just around the corner, then why wouldn't OpenAI bet on their own Codex product obviating (most) need for an IDE and save themselves the $3 billion?

why OpenAI purchased windsurf instead of prompting openai to create something like windsurf? this is the question i am still asking...

Maybe to avoid the Second System Effect.

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#212
post #117
post #54

Earlier 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…

That seems pretty bold. I still find myself switching to basically anything but the VS code copilot agent any chance I get.

Can you expand on that? What's so bad about VSC's copilot agent? What do you switch to?

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#213
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the fact that OpenAI, at the bleeding edge of it all, has decided to buy an IDE is a rather strong hint that the future of agents handling entire engineering tickets might be further out than many believe. If autonomous agents were just around the corner, then why wouldn't OpenAI bet on their own Codex product obviating (most) need for an IDE and save themselves the $3 billion?

It sounds like the openAI team is overburdened (I guess they aren’t AI super users yet) so this may be their only option. Easy entry into a key segment, at least for now, and locks out competitors.

As a competitor in that key segment I don't feel locked out. I could almost jump for joy that this very weak-tea move is the most they can do with that much money. They're just quintupling down on the technology of 50 years ago. There's no threat to me at all here as a creator of from-first-principles IDE technology.

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#214
I don't get why people want the AI right in their editor. In another windows inside the editor, fine, but not inline with code I'm writing. It's super distracting to have AI auto complete pop up at random all the time. As always, typing speed, or speed at generating raw code, is not the bottleneck in programming. The crux remains design, in which case having the LLM on the side is just fine (if you use it for that).

There are some niceties about inline completion (like spelling out a log message that's obvious from the surrounding code) but I don't get the hype much beyond that.

Maybe I'm missing some feature though ...

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#216

We're reaching a point where we don't need to switch to another IDE (from VS Code/IntelliJ/insert-your-IDE-here) for "AI/vibe coding" IDEs 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 res…

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#217

We're reaching a point where we don't need to switch to another IDE (from VS Code/IntelliJ/insert-your-IDE-here) for "AI/vibe coding" IDEs 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 res…

[deleted]

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#218

I don't get why people want the AI right in their editor. In another windows inside the editor, fine, but not inline with code I'm writing. It's super distracting to have AI auto complete pop up at random all the time. As always, typing speed, or speed at generating raw code, is not the bottleneck in programming. The crux remains design, in which case having the LLM on the side is just fine (if you use it for that).…

Have you tried it recently?

AI autocomplete is the best thing I've experienced in developer experience in my career since git won over subversion.

I don't use LLM code prompting, but autocomplete is my jam. It's getting things right 90% of the time when I'm plumbing fields or refactoring. It makes life so much more pleasurable, and I say that as someone who is already using a statically typed language with robust IDE refactoring capabilities.

It's absolutely made me more productive.

Re: OpenAI reaches agreement to buy Windsurf for $3B

#220

I don't get why people want the AI right in their editor. In another windows inside the editor, fine, but not inline with code I'm writing. It's super distracting to have AI auto complete pop up at random all the time. As always, typing speed, or speed at generating raw code, is not the bottleneck in programming. The crux remains design, in which case having the LLM on the side is just fine (if you use it for that).…

Have you tried it recently? AI autocomplete is the best thing I've experienced in developer experience in my career since git won over subversion. I don't use LLM code prompting, but autocomplete is my jam. It's getting things right 90% of the time when I'm plumbing fields or refactoring. It makes life so much more pleasurable, and I say that as someone who is already using a statically typed language with robust IDE…

I am happy with Copilot with VSCode..I do not think so, I would need to let AI generate the entire code. Even if I need, I copy/paste from Claude/GPT
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